The Last Dragon Thief
by Antje
Summary: Many years after the war, Harry has difficulty fitting in. He accepts an offer from Draco to explore a macabre tie to the past. But Malfoy is more enigmatic than ever. Harry, with Ron and Hermione (and Seamus!), are tossed into a mystery that teaches them things they never learned at Hogwarts: theoretical magic, and the hidden world of very powerful Elves. HP/DM. HG/RW.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **I started writing this story in 2007... quit working on it for years... finished it with a flurry of mad writing in 2009. This is 150,000 words long in total (41 "chapters"); it's an epic, and will take a lot of time to read. I admire and adore anyone willing to commit to it.  
**Warnings**: EWE, AU, ignores some canon, Minor Original Characters (not paired), some invented language  
**Pairings**: Harry/Draco; Hermione/Ron; Percy/Penelope (briefly)... While this is a Draco and Harry story, please be aware that they spend about half of the book separated from one another.  
**Story Summary**: The war ended three years ago, and the wizarding world snuggles into a post-Restoration era. London is a cheery place again, except for Harry Potter. Among his peers, he's the source of gossip and malapert speculation. Eager for an understanding of how he became so antagonised, Harry accepts an offer from Draco Malfoy to explore a macabre tie to the past. But Malfoy is more enigmatic than ever. And Harry, along with Ron and Hermione, are tossed into a mystery that takes them back to the days when Albus Dumbledore was a young man, into the Other Worlds of the Northern Elves, and into the very core of Light and Dark Magic.

-x-

PROLOGUE

Albus Dumbledore had never witnessed such a land as what lay before him. He blinked against the glare, sunlight to snow, and swallowed again a bite of tears for this austere beauty. An hour had passed since crossing into the Arctic Circle. He felt the crossing in him as a gentle tingle, as though the north pole had a power of its own. Father Christmas, singing snowmen, reindeer who play games, and, of course, the omnipresent elves.

At least Dumbledore had come to the north pole with an elf as his guide. An elf made the adventure into Norway all the more legitimate. But Dumbledore would never think of elves the same way. For they were not the images of myths.

And Kriskarius Prask hardly expressed the same characteristics of all his elf kin. His height was shorter than standard. His hair highlighted in copper, unlike the sheer hues of his Western relatives. And his eyes blazed an ardent green, rimmed in yellow. Intrepid, brutish, churlish, antagonising eyes, and that way for good reason. Prask sequestered himself regularly from the clannish social dealings of his people. He existed alone, here, high in the north country. Waiting to be a guide to the witches and wizards that trekked the wintry wilds, and asking very few questions as to why they would do so. He provided this service to see the guests of his lands reach from one point to another. No singular elf could do it better.

No one understood ice and snow better than Prask. A man of few words, his sentences laconic and cast quietly from his low voice. Yet his ears were exemplary. The ice sang to him. He claimed it sang to everyone, but he was the only being Dumbledore had met, as of yet, that could decipher the carol codes. The talent was unparalleled.

Elves have a universal knowledge of earthly things, a concept of time shared with no other sentient species, and a strict deference for magic. Prask disregarded magic. It was nothing to him but fireworks: pretty for a little while, but otherwise useless. All the magic he needed his elf genes had provided at birth. Through childhood, Prask had to nurse the instincts. Disregard the weakest. Discover the strongest. Train it, study it, acknowledge its influences. And then use it.

He knew snow.

And he knew the Voesvorgen.

The snow was an inconvenience to Dumbledore. But he had expected it. Just another hindrance. A mere stepping stone to the Voesvorgen. The snow was still and silent and allowed him time to think and plan. He had done so little of that.

They wouldn't see him coming. Oh no. Not the Voesvorgen. Not they.

Then again, those who wielded Dark Magic never saw their end, when they looked in the serene eyes of Albus Dumbledore.

-x-

'Albus, up ahead,' Prask said as he stopped. From the sides of his hood, his long hair trembled in an erratic western wind. His cheeks had pinked from exertion. His gaze penetrated the distance. And Dumbledore followed the line of sight to a series of cliffs on the opposite fjord.

'Good,' said Dumbledore, transplanting his walking staff from his left hand to his right. 'Well done, Prask.'

Prask's acknowledgement was a modest nod.

Dumbledore analysed the distant spot. The sun held its harsh angle, not high in the sky but too far east to shed all its golden glory on the uneven face of the fjord. And the fjord rose up, less steep than its cousins hugging the North Sea farther south. Where those they had passed earlier had been green and lush with the skin of spring, these fjords were forlorn, desolate, weighed beneath the eternal clasp of winter. Patches of snow lingered where the sun failed to reach, where Persephone forgot to tiptoe. Yet he caught a series of black spots, blacker still than the shadows, and they whisked excitement into him.

'Which cave, do you think?'

'The fifth one in. Notice, it's the only one that is missing snow at its lip.'

'So it is! So it is! What keen eyes you have, Prask. And cleverness. It had gone completely out of my notice. The fifth one in. We had better hurry, for I fear our time nears its end!'

Armed with his alabaster staff, Dumbledore rushed on. His gaze snapped back to the fifth cave. After a day of seeing nothing but snow, ice, and the burning azure above, Dumbledore was grateful to feast upon a different sight. And the fifth cave!

Nearly there . . . Nearly there . . . If they were not too late.

-x-

The lateness came quickly. In a beastly roar and a quaking of the earth, it came. Its asperity, its timeliness, its sick need for coincidence, smote Dumbledore to the heart. He was winded by the ferocity of the howl, and fell where he stood. Prask remained standing. Stunned, but standing. He shifted his lithe feet apart, withstood the quivers and aftershocks, and stared fixedly at the fifth cave.

A flame shot from the depth. Orange and red, demonic in its ability to hypnotise. Then a snarl. A knurled ribbon of obsidian smoke. A maudlin whimper. And—

Prask was tugged to the ground by Dumbledore.

'Hold still!' the wizard commanded. And fractious Prask, who barely obeyed any law, written or orated, obeyed this.

The wizard's staff lay on the ground, a fist close to its top. It swirled in an arch overhead, and a curtain of snow and ice enclosed them.

They heard the beast cry. In the empty, vacuole fjord, the sound echoed and echoed. The land beneath Prask's hands was alive with granules and crystals jumping erratically, so disruptive was the shriek.

'You have magic,' said Prask, holding the wizard's look, and finding maturity and wisdom hidden in a youthful pate, 'and yet you hide from that beast.'

'I am not in the frame of mind,' Dumbledore assuaged with one of his charming smirks, 'to take on a newly-formed dragon this morning. It is much more an evening task, after tea, if it must be done at all.' Dumbledore paused, listening, and heard a faint creak of the ice, and the lonesome chorus of the surf upon the rocky shore far, far below. 'He will be gone in a moment, gone to find his master and start again.'

'Yes.' Prask could think of nothing worthwhile to say. He had not the gifted tongue of Albus, or of his relatives, to say easy placations as situation required.

'You do realise this means we failed.'

'Yes. I am sorry, Dumbledore. If I had been a better guide, we might have been in time. If I had been able to lead you to the—'

'It is no fault of yours, Prask. And out of every failure rises a benefit. I have learned about the ice of Norway. Should the Voesvorgen commit such a daring act again I will be more prepared.'

'Will they?'

'Anything is possible. And, additionally, you and I have formed an acquaintance, a friendship, as quests often procure between two people of dissimilar backgrounds.'

'Should you call me friend, Albus, I am much honoured. And when the Voesvorgen unleash their evil again, I will be ready to fight at your side.'

'You are a good man, Prask. Or, if you prefer,' Dumbledore's smile increased, 'a good elf.'

'My kind do not see me so enlightened.'

'Perhaps they will, Prask, one day.'

The ice moaned, and the sea along with it, and then all went still. Winter's calm had regained the northern fjord. Dumbledore examined the low ceiling.

'I think we will risk exposure now.'

The staff removed the igloo. The two men stood, brushed themselves free of sticking crystals and flakes. Afterward, they surveyed. Nothing had changed. It was remarkable, Prask thought, that such turmoil had been unleashed, yet nothing had changed. They sky reigned above, the ice solid beneath his boots, as they had always been.

And a dragon's accidental nativity, the result of ethereal virulency, did not end the world. Not yet.

'Out there somewhere,' Prask said, looking at the eastern horizon and feeling a sense of infinity innate his people, 'the Voesvorgen celebrate and are joyful. They have won.'

'They have won this simple little battle, yes. Though we must conclude that our pursuit of them remained hidden, even from their encompassing reach, and in that we have been fortunate. We will not dwell on our loss, Prask. We must look into the future. Out there somewhere is a day when the Voesvorgen will be destroyed. Perhaps many years from now, perhaps out of my lifetime and yours. But that day, like the Voesvorgen, waits with patience.'

Prask let show a rare grin. Hopeful it was, if a touch cynical. 'I look forward to this future victory of your description.'

'As do I.' Dumbledore took to his staff, his wand planted inside, better to wield one weapon instead of fumbling for two, and started down the path they had just now ended. A path that had started with hope, and had ended in despair.

A sign of the beast remained in the clear north. The scent of smoke, and the burned lamina of a dragon's skin.

-x-

**Episode One: Echoes**

I.01

Harry Potter had spent a purposeless year in London, ever confident that he'd find a way to better his world from the bottom to the top. With a new Minister for Magic, a clear out in the Ministry, families reunited, and friends made out of the mutual heartache of loved ones lost, Time had weaved her own magic web. The Restoration era was winding down as the new millennia crawled nearer. Suddenly Harry found himself without Hogwarts, without a proper job, and no place to call home. Grimmauld Place remained his, left to him by Sirius, but the memories bore a burden far too great to endure alone. A run-down room at the Leaky Cauldron provided a haven, a close attachment to London's wizarding community, and did not have the ponderous sense of isolation like Number 12. No residence would ever replace Hogwarts to him. It had been his home, ten months out of twelve.

Now he had nothing. Or barely anything. His wand, some clothes, a trunk of old schoolbooks, war relics, and a famous name. Nothing at all, really. The sensation was unfamiliar. He felt unbalanced, unnatural. 'It's odd waking up every morning and knowing I don't have to fight anymore,' he once told Hermione and Ron. Hermione had said that he'd grown so used to being a victim, and Ron used the word hero in place of victim, that it was difficult for Harry to ease back into the normalcy others claimed naturally but that had always evaded him.

Normalcy, he strove for it at first. At the age of nineteen, bored with London, he returned to Godric's Hollow, set up house, and lived as a leisure gentleman. The days went on so tediously, and he was too far, he decided, from Ron and Hermione, and with so few in Godric's Hollow willing to become friends with _the_ Harry Potter, the leisure life soon turned monotonous, drab, it lost all appeal.

He wished himself away.

On a day in March, he trolled Diagon Alley and heard that his previous room at the Leaky Cauldron was empty. And the afternoon following, he had left Godric's Hollow, to what he thought was the secret glee of its denizens, and returned to London. He thought it would bring happiness. The familiarity brought ease, not happiness.

Somehow, life was not quite as it should be.

-x-

I.02

First, encouraged by the Weasley Collective, Harry applied at the Ministry, a position that happened to be vacant under Ron's brother, Percy Weasley. Percy called Harry into the Ministry for an interview. To Harry's astonishment, he grew more and more nervous, though it was only Percy, and surely the Ministry wouldn't dare turn down the opportunity to have in their employ _the_ Harry Potter.

Percy, dressed in his best grey wool robes of business, and his tall hat, sitting behind his wide wooden desk in his wide white office, examined Harry's c.v. rather critically.

'Harry, I'm going to be honest with you.' Percy looked as though honesty was the worst that could ever pass his lips. Honesty an enemy of _the_ Harry Potter. Percy set his hands, palms on the c.v., downward, and upward went his shoulders, and intense went the authority in his brown eyes. Then his brow slipped together in the middle. Consternation had come. 'Harry, I'd hate to point out the obvious, but this has been on my mind since—since, well, the war, actually— Harry, do you realise you haven't actually _finished_ school?'

A devastating point. He _hadn't_ finished school, in the technical sense that he'd never taken his N.E.W.T.s. Harry, for a moment, allowed this point to pass, though a silent scream shuddered through him, and it banged against his heart like a maddened eagle whose wings had been clipped, who could not survive.

Then Percy smiled, bright, gleaming. He beamed and was radiant. 'I'm taking the piss, really.' He laughed a moment along with Harry, and the laughs expelled the seriousness from the room, exchanged for joy. 'Wasn't that horrible of me? So sorry, I couldn't resist. Though it _has_ been on my mind, and it's something you really _should_ look in to. N.E.W.T.s can still be taken. I'll put you in touch with Griselda Marchbanks, you remember her I'm sure, the head of the Wizarding Examinations Authority. She'll fix you up.' He moved the c.v. around and fidgeted with a quill. 'I'm afraid, however, that the opening in my department is excessively boring. Wouldn't suit you at all. But you need a proper job. Let me owl to you a list of Ministry openings, and whatever sounds most interesting to you, that will be yours.'

'Mine? What, just like that?'

'Of course,' Percy ogled him as though Harry had flobberworms growing from his ears, 'of course, Harry! We've been hopeful—well, some of us have—we've wanted you to come to the Ministry. Some of us even had bets going as to who would get you to work for them first, the Ministry or Hogwarts. Now that's an interesting enquiry, if you may allow me the indulgence for a moment. Why not Hogwarts? You would've been the best Defence Against the Dark Arts professor that ever was.'

Harry lifted his shoulders, measuring the answer before speaking it. He took his time to speak now, now that there was time enough for patience. How to verbalise the violation he felt? 'I-I can't, it would be impossible. That job always felt like someone else's.'

'Fair enough,' Percy conceded with a nod. 'And they say the position's still cursed. Although Ginny seems to enjoy it.'

'She may have it.'

Percy measured the reaction of his sister's name against Harry, and waited too long before expounding the topic. Instead, he stood, held his hand for Harry, and watched the young man rise. Odd to have seen someone like Harry Potter grow up, become a member of the family in heart if not lawfully, and rejoice in his triumphs and pity the trials.

'It is finally nice, Harry, if I may say so, to help you out for once, instead of the other way round.' Percy, who'd always been a little pompous, managed to say such a graceful, condescending sentence without preaching. 'I'll owl that list to you, and you should have it by morning.'

Harry nodded and thanked Percy beneath his breath. Percy grinned again when Harry Potter thanked _him_. Him!

It was a great day.

-x-

I.03

And on that list, Harry had found a tremendous amount of interesting jobs, with interesting titles, such as Exorbitant Magic Counsellor, and Moon Jewel Mason Specialist. He discussed the jobs with his best mates, at Hermione and Ron's cosy home just ten miles south of Ottery St Catchpole.

'Don't take that one,' Hermione advised, using a quill to strike out 'Inter-continental Flight Liaison'.

'But it sounds really romantic,' Harry said. 'Why shouldn't I?'

'Romantic!' repeated Ron, willingly slapping Harry's messy cowlick for this insubordination of male propriety. 'Repeat that word again, and I'll do much, much worse, Potter!'

'It's all about travelling,' Hermione replied to the 'Why shouldn't I?' remark. 'You'll never be home.'

Harry pored over the list and couldn't refuse the retort. 'I'm hardly home as it is. And, all the same, what home?'

'Er,' Hermione stuttered then rose from the table, 'I think the vegetables are burning. No, Ron, I'll check them.' She was gone, and Ron obligingly filled in.

'Our home, mate,' said he. 'She means you won't be round often if you take yourself a travelling job. Can't you find something decent that might leave you time for holidays? Couldn't stand it if you went too far away. Wouldn't be the same. It was even terrible when you lived in Godric's Hollow. I'd rather have you at the Cauldron forever than in Wales for a month.'

'You and all of Godric's Hollow were glad I left.'

'I mean it, Harry. You shouldn't be too far away. Who am I going to talk Quidditch with? Hermione? Not bloody likely. I need you about. For sanity's sake. For the sake of my testosterone. You know. We keep inviting you to Apparate round for dinner, but you're not here that often. And if you take a proper job, it'll be even less often.'

Appreciative of these emotional insights, invaluable to his lonely heart as they were, Harry snickered, following it with a smile. 'And I suppose taking a job as a Seeker is out of the question?'

'We've talked about that,' Ron held the argumentative tone from his voice, and the exasperated inflections stunk of resolve. 'You can't, unless you go as Seeker for the Chudley Cannons, and _only_ the Chudley Cannons.'

'I shouldn't worry if I were you, Ron.' Harry pushed the list from beneath his sight, leaned back, and popped off his glasses for a clean. 'Teams are hardly bombarding me with owls loaded with multi-year offers, are they? No, it's just the same with them as with everyone else. Everyone's afraid of Harry Potter. Maybe I'm cursed.'

Self-consciously, with a derisive smirk, he rubbed the scar on his forehead.

He suddenly remembered, void of doubt, that he was indeed cursed.

-x-


	2. Chapter 2

I.04

For five days, Harry went to the Ministry building at least twice a week, to speak with people about work. Some were less receptive than others. Often he ran into Percy, Mr Weasley, Minster Shacklebolt, and several he'd spent years with at Hogwarts. They wished to spend time in his company, 'to hear all the news'. Such a phrase translated easily into 'listening to the wonderful life of others while I have nothing to say about my own life' for Harry. He dreaded being asked round for tea, to dinner, or having to go to lunch with the Minister at Pompardo's, a fabulously, ridiculously posh Italian restaurant within the sleekest realms of Muggle London.

But while at Pompardo's, dining on linguini and discussing the current galleon to pound exchange rate, Harry met Eva St Eve and Ambrutus Brutus. A striking couple, tall, dark, fair-eyed, imposing, impossible to ignore. He couldn't believe, after swallowing his linguini down with a sip of red wine, that he mistook them, at first, for Muggles. They sat at an intimate table for two along the back of the restaurant. And only at their departure from that table did they deign to greet the Minister. Their attention lasted a rude length of time on Harry's scar. He felt it prickle, along with heat in his cheeks, under their Hungarian eyes.

After an eternity of embarrassment, Ambrutus Brutus faced the Minister. 'We have had much difficulty finding a suitable residence for us in this city, Minister.'

Eva St Eve's notable alto quickly listed the problems. 'This place, it has no room. This other place, it has too much room. This place, it have bad kitchen. This other, it fall apart. And this place, it smell. Nothing suited for me and husband in this London of yours, Minister.'

Harry didn't know what made him think of it, but he spoke up then. 'I have a house. It's not really for sale, and it's not an estate exactly, but I'd love to be rid of it.'

In less than a fortnight, Harry had Grimmauld Place sold to the Hungarians. Relief as he'd forgotten it carried him to the stable grounds of happiness, lasting days. He had made some money from the sale, had shoved it in his Gringott's vault, and pondered what to do with his life. Staying aimless disturbed his health, and for a while he nursed a lingering cough and cold that no herb sent from Neville Longbottom, no broth of Molly Weasley's, could conquer.

In the spring of what would be his twenty-first year, he discovered that his wealth and idleness, his popularity and gregariousness, had made him the first playboy of the wizarding world.

It wouldn't do. It simply wouldn't do at all.

-x-

He thrashed about in misery. Woe marked him as an ally. He hid at the Leaky Cauldron during the day. He talked idly with Tom. He visited with shopkeepers in Diagon Alley. He even roamed the dark, narrow paths of Knockturn Alley. He saw Ambrutus Brutus and Eva St Eve, and hid from them, ashamed that they'd think him a socialite. They were already having extravagant parties at Grimmauld Place, and the _Daily Prophet_ often had them in the social column. He avoided the famous and the rich, going so far in avoidance to disguise fame in himself.

He pretended to be a child again. On sunny days of early spring, he ate sundaes at Florean Fortescue's, typically with a book propped in front of him, either muggle or wizard written. Non-fiction was his love, and history of the Hogwarts Founders his hobby. He could not forget the Headdress of Ravenclaw, the Cup of Hufflepuff, the Locket of Slytherin, and the Sword of Gryffindor. The fancy developed to write his own book someday, a non-fiction title, nothing at all like a biography. Just a book. Nothing pretentious or boring. But something to do while he waited for the world to welcome him again. Whenever that should be.

He supposed the sun would burn out before people forgot who he was.

Or the moon would fail to rise before he would let himself forget.

He felt like the only one who suffered in his post-Restoration identity. But a small part of him knew he was not. There was at least one other.

-x-

The main ingredient of Wiltshire countryside is unobtrusive little hills, visible best from the distance, as in the middle of a stark, empty plain. But the plains were plentiful, the hills infrequent, and the latter rolled away, everlasting mint in hue, like giant leprechauns dozing on their backs. Perhaps the bucolic view saved Malfoy Manor from complete abandonment.

The house of cold stone had transformed to a house of cold memories. In the long sunset of an April evening, when Draco forced himself to return, the manor waited, dark and massive and insidious, waiting to swallow him whole. No light burned in the front windows. And, even before self-imposed exile, he had stopped using the front entrance, for its unrelenting bleakness and staining remembrances. Only in the back of the house, from the kitchens and music room, did he find cosy windows and chimneys smoking. On other storeys, those above the first, the wavy glass panes caught bits of moon and stars, and faraway lights through the trees, but that was all. It reflected light as well as life. It _rejected_ joy.

The door rattled on weakened, damaged hinges, and closed with an acrimonious thump behind the billowing tails of his sorriest robes. He scrubbed the soles of his shoes on a wretched mat in the oval side hall, while the new routine of his daily return played out.

Buckles hobbled in from the kitchens, the light from behind casting the house-elf's shadow as a lengthy, cretinous shape against a floor of tumbled marble. He hobbled now, not because of age, but from an injury sustained during a siege on the manor. Buckles admitted he'd gotten in the way when they came to arrest Master Malfoy, demanded that the Young Master provide clothes, as a means of dismissal, for Buckles certainly deserved nothing less. But Buckles had been part of Draco's childhood, a reminder of pleasanter days, days he had not thought would be so fleeting, nor so missed. The first real stirring of pity touched Draco, in the deliberate hell of becoming master of the manor, and he allowed Buckles to stay on, for this one piece of the past to remain undiluted by the unforgivable mutations of war.

'Good evening, Young Master,' greeted Buckles in his Wiltshire lilt, a bit less on the R's than normal, yet softer to the ears. From behind his long back, the elf produced a bundle of envelopes, most the off-white of parchment used frequently in the wizarding world, and some with fantastic colours. 'Lots of post come for you today. Owls flying 'bout in the owlery all the livelong, Young Master.'

'Thank you, Buckles,' Draco said absently, ignoring the letters in favour of removing a dampened travelling cloak. 'Could you set them on the table just there? I'd like to get into something that doesn't stink of London rain, if I may.'

Buckles hurriedly laid the letters aside and helped his master with the change of garments. 'And how was Young Master's return to the office, to new job? Did Young Master like it very well?'

'It is much the same as I was doing before, Buckles.'

'Yes, sir.'

'It will take getting used to.'

'Buckles imagines so, sir.' Buckles tilted his head forward, thoughts of the war searing, and was relieved to find distraction from minute puddles on the floor. 'I see Young Master has been too long out in the rain. Should Young Master like Buckles to make him some tea? Or perhaps Affinity can warm up some stew, or make tasty shepherd's pie?'

'Yes,' Draco said, still distracted, as he'd been all day, 'yes, um, splendid. I'm starving. I missed lunch. Could you have Affinity mend this for me, you think?' He used a mischievous forefinger to poke through a hole in the right elbow of his travelling robe.

Holding up the garment, in his short height, so that the hems trailed along the floor, Buckles examined the robe with the well-trained eye of a thousand butlers. 'Certainly, sir. May Buckles enquire as to how this came about? Torn clean through! Threads feazed! Did Young Master get unluckily caught in a tree branch on his way home? Did Young Master not Apparate as well as he usually does?'

Draco still sneered with the best of them, and he sneered triumphantly toward Buckles, but with a hint of humour. 'You know how the mind treats you sometimes, Buckles. One minute, you're focused intently, and the next—utter chaos in the grey matter. Yes,' he nodded once, trying not to do so emphatically, 'yes, I Apparated _very_ poorly.'

'But Young Master was distracted. Young master is lucky he did not splinch himself, sir. Shall Buckles bring Young Master tea?'

Draco returned to the round granite-topped table in the centre of the hall to claim the stack of post. It was enormously weighty in his hand, and thick between his fingers. So much post on Mondays. And, of all the post, only one or two personal notes, the rest newsletters or lengthier periodicals. Some delivery owls still did not know where Mistress Malfoy currently resided. 'No, brew us up some coffee, would you, Buckles? And some of that fancy American cream. What is it called—?'

'Halfing-half, sir,' provided Buckles, coming close enough to the proper name. 'Affinity has just received some from an owl post order today, Young Master. Buckles will bring it to you in the music room, sir. The fire is laid there, and the room is warmed.'

Draco passed through the second hall, heels clicking, and bobbed his head in a dismissive yet grateful manner towards Buckles. In turn, the house-elf bowed, but did not leave the hall until Young Master had disappeared fully into the music room.

The area carpets, ancient, threadbare things, finally quieted his footfalls when he reached his favourite sitting room. A shapely room with two window-seats looking to the side garden, whose giant vistas provided the last threads of magnificent sunset hues, pinks and limes and eye-burning oranges, and the thin branches of naked trees standing as dormant sentries black and opaque against spring's twilight, and the sliver of a shimmering moon hanging beside a bright planet. Draco inhaled deeply, the pause to absorb the prospect affecting his taut nerves; when the breath came into him, he caught the scents of burning wood, brewing coffee, must from the manor's dusty corners, and oil from Malfoy portraits. But mostly the burning wood, a comforting scent reminding him of Christmas holidays, both at home when he was a boy, and at Hogwarts during his impressionable years.

The glass panes were thin and had been disenchanted to keep out winter weather, and Draco was chilled as he stood. He moved a little, aiming for the sitting chair near the fire, opposite a twin.

Draco flopped into it, all arms and legs like a spider flattening himself against an enemy. He'd come home, and endured the solitary quiet.

Affinity brought coffee. Quiet about it, liking to be unseen, as she'd always been. She belonged to Narcissa, from years when both were younger, woman and house-elf, and it was natural that Narcissa should want to have the house-elf as she started establishing her own home. Draco watched as a cup was poured for him. How many times he'd seen it done in his life, by that very elf, he could not count. One day, he supposed they would rather be with Narcissa than 'the Young Master'. And off they would be, because Draco cared too much for them to speak it. To utter the hurt was a wound itself. They would go because he was too much of a coward to ask them to stay.

'Everything all right, Young Master?'

'Thank you, Affinity,' was all he said. The house-elf's enquiry was not ignored, only forgotten by choice. He did this with enquiries that had no true answer, or that could not be answered concisely in fewer than a handful of words.

He took the coffee to a secretary in the drafting room, in the back corner of the manor. On a sheet of parchment, Draco fashioned a falsely uplifting, rather simpering letter to his mother.

He wanted to write about visiting again, but it seemed impossible. He had just returned. Everyone knew. Everyone who read the _Prophet_ knew. Everyone working at the Ministry knew. And to leave so suddenly, he would appear a quitter, a cheat, a runaway, a reject. None was he, but appearances were deception's best tool. Narcissa still cared about those sorts of things. Lucius, too.

Malfoy hadn't time for such social frivolity. He felt the cold of the drawing room draping its ponderous cloak about him. He shivered, sealed the letter, and rushed off to find his owl high in the attic. It was second nature now to take the back staircase, to avoid the drawing room, with its acrid, detrimental memories. He certainly had so little time. As the cold grew worse, the odours thicker, so grew shorter his days.

Demons would be faced. But, for now, just the simple act of sending a letter. He patted the head of his family's owl, imbuing his gratefulness into the bird. And he thought, once again, 'Not this day. Not just yet.'

He wasn't ready.

The bird flew off confidently. It knew its way, its purpose. Draco folded his arms across his middle, envious of feathers and purpose and liberty.

-x-

I.07

Rain came in April, and London gleamed in twinkling night lights. Harry realised that he could no longer avoid the invitations from the Hungarians, and he would have to attend a party at the old headquarters for the disbanded but remembered Order of the Phoenix.

He thought and dreamed to himself as he dressed that night in his musty Leaky Cauldron room, the same room he'd stayed the summer before his third year at Hogwarts. He thought he would at least know someone at the party, that would be a given. He knew everyone, and, naturally, everyone knew him. He dreamed of going fashionably late, leaving nightmarishly early, and not reading the _Prophet_ the next day, to be sure his name was not among the bold type-face in the social column.

The column lay open on his bed. He put it away before departing, his eyes catching again the ellipses of a centre paragraph, the fragment sentences, the names in bold.

. . . _The Witchtower reports that Draco Malfoy has returned from the Continent, and has accepted an undisclosed position at the Ministry of Magic_ . . .

And, more to Harry's chagrin than the announcement of Malfoy's return:

. . . _Rumour buzzes as to whether or not Harry Potter is going to attend the spring ball given by Madam St Eve and Sir Brutus. Too bad for those of us not invited to this elite event_ . . .

Harry folded the paper along its predetermined seams, and binned it on the way out the door.

-x-

I.08

His was not the only umbrella in the crural stand of the great hall of Number 12. He eyed the stand with misgiving as the house-elf took his cloak. The house had been sold to the Hungarians as it was, furniture and doxies and mould. Having not seen it since the sale, Harry bordered on anxious to witness stark changes.

Very little had changed, he espied. Very little indeed.

But it no longer felt like his home. He no longer expected Sirius to fly down the stairs, Remus Lupin at the tails of his godfather's obscenely orange-red house robes, or to find Mrs Weasley cleaning the draperies in one of its three parlours.

The memories were still there. He'd forgotten to check them as he entered. And the globular eyes of the house-elf watched him expectantly, but no house-elf was keen on taking memories and hanging them in the coat room.

He passed the curtained portrait of Mrs Black. She, who'd never admired any member of the Order, who'd hated her son and despised Remus Lupin, had found a likable new owner in Sir Brutus. And Harry was left to imagine what had been done with the Black Family Tree. He'd heard rumour from Percy, who'd heard it from Penelope, who'd heard it from goodness knows who, that Sir Brutus had fashioned new wallboard over the Tree. The room would be like new. History buried beneath. Harry had a notion Sirius would approve. 'That is where history belongs,' he imagined his godfather saying. 'Buried, out of sight, out of reach. And the only way to find it is by digging for it. And only those that really want to know it will put forth the effort.'

He shuffled on, awkward and aching, till he reached the waterfall of voices on the second floor. Food and wine and candlelight, gentle on his senses, greeted him before a friendly face found him.

'Good to see you, Harry!'

He found his hand held. 'Oh hello, Penelope. You're looking very nice.'

Penelope Clearwater, Percy's co-habiting significant other, seemed to understand that she looked best in blue, her hair every bit as long and curly as Harry remembered from school. She'd grown taller, it felt to Harry that everyone was taller than he, but her mind was as serious and sharp as ever. Harry had seen a photograph of her on Percy's office desk.

'You look nice yourself! I've heard from Percy you've been spotted at the Ministry rather frequently, but I keep missing you, it seems! Well, I'm happy to have you here now! Come along, let's find Percy. Are you hungry at all? They have the most disgusting food, and by disgusting I mean rich, should you want something.'

'Not just now, thanks. There are a lot of people here.' They wended through the crowd, so stuffed that he barely noticed the change in the parlour walls, the subtle shine to new brass light fixtures, the fluffiness of sofas not yet broken in.

'Aren't there! Half the wizards and witches of the Isles, I imagine. Ah, there's Percy, clear across the room!'

People he only caught vague glimpses of wished him good evening, and he was able to return the words often, but less often accompanied by a name, and sometimes he had only a chance to breathe a surname, nothing more. Jewels twinkled, robes of velvet shone in wealthy lustre, silks gleamed in bright shades, and everywhere was the tinkling of merry laughter like fairy bells.

'Hello, Harry,' Percy said as they neared, 'nice to see you've accepted the invitation. All of Britain is here! Isn't this a marvellous party? I hear they're going to sponsor the Restoration Day celebrations this year. I can see why! They came here from Rotterdam, and before that lived in Vienna. They had some trouble in Vienna. Someone broke into their house.'

'Really?' Penelope had apparently missed this story if her sententious boyfriend had issued it before. 'I never heard. When was this?'

'Oh years back. Two and a half years ago, I think. I only remember it because Dad worked part of the case.'

'How much was taken?'

'Nothing valuable that Madam St Eve wanted returned. Dad was secretly disappointed. He hoped to be called on to find one of their curiosities in a Muggle antique shop. They have so many oddities.'

'Looks like they do,' Harry added, shuffling his gaze round the room. It was filled with knickknacks, most of them resembling ordinary Muggle artefacts: globular art nouveau lamps, paintings in gilded frames, an empire-era sofa, an elaborate brass fireplace fender, and those were just the items within his immediate range.

Percy continued to speak well of Eva St Eve and Ambrutus Brutus. 'It's good of the Hungarians to come to London, of all the places they might have relocated. I think we required the most cheering, didn't we? And here they are, the answer to London's awful weather and our sinking spirits.'

'I'm sure they were sorry they missed the Restoration.' Harry tried to say it politely, as a meaningless comment to direct the conversation.

'Beg your pardon?' Percy had been distracted for the remark. 'How do you like the old house, Harry? Isn't it stunning? Have you had a chance yet to explore their array of collectibles? Rare artefacts from the Muggle world as well as wizarding world. Oh I know what you're thinking, Harry! Dark Arts stuff! Am I right? Well, no Dark Arts memorabilia here! It's mostly old books, or strange, broken things that no longer serve a purpose. Still, what a change from the way the place looked before!'

'Percy, you do go on,' Penelope admonished, discarding an empty wine glass on a hovering tray that slipped its way through the dense populace. 'One might overhear you and think you envious.'

'Oh Penny, my dear, I'm hardly envious. I'm sure Harry thinks our wealthy Hungarians have done very well with this house.'

'They have. It's their home now.' Having nothing else to say but an agreement depressed him.

Eventually, he meandered away, pretence to find Eva St Eve and Ambrutus Brutus and thank them for the invitation. He hoped it wouldn't be embarrassing to show polite gratefulness, after he had dismissed six previous requests.

He wound his way through Grimmauld Place, at times closing his eyes tightly, so he would not have to witness the trampling feet of strangers against the floors of a hated relic.

A hated relic that had once been his. Sirius had been happy here. Lupin had been here. And Snape. Even Dumbledore.

Now only the faint shapes of their ghosts lingered in Harry's memory. He ached for them, but what he ached for could never come again.

-x-

I.09

Snips of conversation floated to him, and the more he heard the more sorry he was that he'd come. He often heard his name.

'Harry Potter . . .'

Followed by snide statements. He knew they were snide. Unforgiving rudeness could only be snide.

'. . . I hear he's been out of work for nearly a year.'

'Can't find a proper job, poor man. . .'

'Why doesn't he try something else for a change?'

'It might do him good to go to the Continent. It worked for that Malfoy boy. . .'

'You'd think the Ministry would do something. . .'

'Sure looks stylish in those robes, doesn't he?'

'Not hurting for money, with the sale of this place. . .'

'He does _nothing_ all day! Just imagine!'

The insults were unintentional, but his ears reddened beneath the cracking whips. Wizards and witches he didn't know, or only knew as passing acquaintances, had judged him. His mind was made up to thank Madam St Eve and Sir Brutus for their hospitality, then immediately depart. He yearned for the quiet, unassuming atmosphere of the Leaky Cauldron, for tea by the fireplace, and toast with butter and jam. . .

-x-

I.10

He had a chance to take the hand of St Eve and Brutus, managed to impart no displeasure at the Spring Soiree, as Eva St Eve christened it, and left them believing he was having the time of his life.

In the entrance hall, the house-elf saw him coming and fetched the still-wet umbrella from the troll-legged stand and collected the damp cloak.

'Is you leaving us so soon, Master Potter?'

Harry tilted his head at the question, imagining in this house-elf's place the image of Kreacher. The old house-elf under his employ, in his baggy, worn cloth, had gone to His Own Place one winter's day two years back, and left the old Black manor utterly, truly lifeless.

The last living tie to Sirius, gone. That winter was colder than the others.

Harry took his effects, donned them, mumbled a thanks, and proudly exited. Should it be the last time he enter and leave Number 12 Grimmauld Place, he wanted those watchful eyes to note the straightness of his shoulders, the strength in his jaw, the cold, calculated, unemotional indifference of his face.

-x-


	3. Chapter 3

I.11

The night had turned thick as soot. Sheets of haze hung moodily between the old houses, across the twinkling grass in the square. Earth seemed to be reaching for sky and succeeding. The peachy hues of intermittent street lamps barely illumed the steps. Harry had his umbrella raised, and wondered at taking his chances of casting an Impervious Charm, how many Muggles would see, before he cared to notice an out of place obsidian bundle two steps down. A hooded figure that, for a brief second, had Harry revisiting dead memories of Voldemort's army. A remembered monody of screams passed. He shuddered and removed the garbled fantasies. He was in the future, and nothing of the past could hurt him now.

Believing it to be a member of the Spring Soiree, the event of all wizards and witches in Britain, Harry took the steps carefully and tossed out ineffectual words.

'I hear it's drier inside. Not a drop of rain.'

Leaving it at that, Harry headed to the left, meaning to find a vacant spot to Disapparate back to the Cauldron.

'Potter?'

Pivoting on his heel, Harry blinked before Grimmauld Place came into view anew. The hooded figure jumped the last step, and Harry fought off the whelming sense of horror. So long since he had seen such a shape, and of course it teased him to despair. He held his breath till the figure stopped, and soft orange light, diffused by drizzle, marked pointed features. A hand folded the hood from pate and revealed tangled white-blond hair and two deep-set icicles that barely passed for eyes.

'Good Merlin,' Malfoy said, an airy, uplifting note in his tenor, 'it is you.'

Harry tilted the umbrella handle against his shoulder, and the heavier drops glissading from its sides obscured Draco Malfoy. 'So it is. I heard you were back.'

A beat echoed by. Each weighed the presence of the other. Harry inhaled.

'Isn't this the part where you say something coy and dapper, like: "You're the last person I expected to see here, Potter!" And we say how have you been, isn't life grand, and so on, ad nauseam, till we get sick of fake friendliness and decide to end the charade by finally excusing ourselves.'

Malfoy chortled, not in the insulting way of old, but in a changeable manner none was used to just yet. 'Still the same Potter, aren't you? Still afraid someone's out to get you. Actually, I _would_ like to know how you've been.'

'Why?' Harry tried to remove the defensive barricades. There was no point in holding back now. Malfoy would certainly know he was an unwanted acquaintance. 'Why should you want to know?'

'Because,' Malfoy leaned in a little, as if to drop a secret, 'people have been saying the most _appalling_ things about you, Potter.'

'Let them talk, wouldn't be the first time. Enjoy yourself at the party.' He turned to go, leaving Grimmauld Place behind him. And thought more of leaving the house than leaving Malfoy.

He was a trifle annoyed when Malfoy's footsteps sounded beside his own. For a moment, Harry paused, aggravated, then moved ahead.

'You see, Potter,' began Malfoy, casual, 'I'm not so sure I want to go to the party. I won't know anyone there. Well, old school chums, I suppose, but why should I go? I was only invited by proxy, anyhow, by the Minister himself. He probably felt sorry for me. He knows I'm the last Malfoy in the United Kingdom. Then again,' Malfoy analysed Potter's altered profile, the tip of the nose and the curve of his chin, 'aren't you the last Potter wizard in the United Kingdom?'

'Yes,' grumbled Harry. 'What of it? I won't let it be an excuse for people to pity me, particularly the Minister for Magic.'

'I work for the Minister, Potter,' Malfoy added, enjoying himself too much. Shocking Potter had always been one of his hobbies at school, and a post-Hogwarts life proved rather dull without someone around to humour him. 'I was working for the Ministry of Magic embassy in Germany. Surely you've heard of this? No, no, you haven't. Why would you? My mother is on the continent now, and pleased with it, while my father whiles away his long hours as a prisoner.'

'Perhaps you should visit him. Often.'

'Do you know, Potter, you're very disputatious this evening,' Malfoy observed. 'I'm attempting to have a decent conversation with my old school enemy, and you're being bastardly about it. We are not the caricatures of youth we once were. Am I not being arrogant enough for you? Or have I brought you to an impasse? You don't know what to do with me. You're not sure whether or not you ought to be rude. You're not sure whether or not you really want to talk to me. And right now, I wager you're thinking that no one likes to listen to Draco Malfoy talk more than Draco Malfoy.' He chuckled warmly in his throat, and his eyes winced together when his lips arched into a grin. 'On that point, I'd say you're correct!'

Harry stopped, the rain starting a rustle against the streets, a tattoo on the umbrella, and stared at Malfoy. 'Go to the party. I'm sure you'll find someone willing to talk to you there. A lot of pretty girls who won't mind that your father supported Voldemort and tried to get you to murder innocent people.'

It happened in a second, that he had taken the step forward to Disapparate and Malfoy had caught his arm in a tight grip.

'Just wait two seconds before you go.'

Harry pressed his mouth against his teeth in a rewarding effort to keep quiet. Why should he listen to Malfoy? Because no one listened to Harry Potter.

'And answer a question, if you can. Tell me why you left the party so early. You, the famous Harry Potter, leaves a party at five after eight on a Saturday night. Why? Not so many pretty girls willing to listen to you?'

'No,' Harry thought then that 'yes' was the honest answer, but not the right answer. 'You said you hear appalling things about me. I hear them, too. Horrid whispers from people who know nothing about me. All around, everywhere I go. I hate London.' He said the three words and was astonished at how they relaxed him. 'I do. Great Merlin,' in a low, surprised voice now, 'I hate London. I _hate_ it.'

Malfoy's fair eyebrows bunched in the middle. 'What about your friends? The Weasleys?'

'I could never live with them,' he said. 'They have their own life.'

'But you're a part of it.'

'An outside part. That's the way it is. Outside, far outside, looking in. Pitiful me!' Harry scoffed himself to stave off embarrassment. 'I look in all the shop windows to see all of these beautiful homes, shaped by beautiful lives, and I cannot buy one of them. That's the way it feels. That's the way it is. Now, you go off to your party, Malfoy, and I'm going back to the Leaky Cauldron. I'd say nice talking to you, but that would be one of the false niceties mentioned earlier. And, along the same lines of sarcasm: I'm glad you're well and all that.'

Before Malfoy could utter the protest Harry knew was rising, he Disapparated.

The night saved him.

-x-

Employed in the Ministry offices Monday, Harry discovered Malfoy lurking at various locations. They passed once in the hall, mid-morning, and exchanged surnames. But Malfoy was on his way to a meeting, Harry later found was at Gringotts. Six hours would pass before they had a conversation.

That day, Harry had been placed in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, level four, under the supervision of heads Dirk Cresswell and Cuthbert Mockridge, and, while the heads stayed cosy pushing papers in their offices, Harry took his orders straight from Hermione. And while Hermione spent most of the day out of her office, Harry acted as her assistant. She enjoyed bossing him around, saying it was like school days, though her correspondence and visitors were not like the homework essays they used to do, obscenely lengthy essays done at crowded tables in the Gryffindor common room, Hermione's books stacked high, and Ron's fingers smudged with ink. . .

'I heard you were at Madam St Eve's party Saturday night,' Hermione randomly announced.

'Only for an hour,' Harry said, trying to proofread a letter to a witch in Kent concerned about her imported Escoujan rats. 'How did you know about it?' Then his face fell. 'Oh not that society column rubbish!'

'Afraid it's true,' Hermione twitched her lip, 'you were in yesterday's edition. They printed the guest list. I saw Malfoy's name on it. Did you see him?'

'Sort of.'

'What do you mean, sort of?'

'He was waiting out on the steps when I left the house. Said he wasn't sure he wanted to go inside.'

'Really!' She set aside quill and parchment and ignored the memos that flew into the office. 'Did you talk to him?'

'He talked to me, more like.'

'What about?'

'Merlin, Hermione, I don't know! It's not like I sat up all night thinking about it.' Which wasn't exactly a lie but only clever circumlocution on his part. Not all night. But it had taken three hours for him to fall asleep. He blamed it on the leaky pipes that dripped away, the Leaky Cauldron living up to half its descriptive moniker.

'He's back from Germany. The only wizarding town in that country. What's it called? Schneestadt, I think, outside Heidelberg,' continued Hermione, once again armed with a quill, as though ready to dismiss the topic, interesting though it was. Harry's face no longer distorted in fury at the mention of Malfoy. 'Now he's back and working for the Ministry.'

'Yes, I've seen him skulking about the corridors. What does he _do_, exactly?'

'He works in payroll, to put it plainly.'

'Payroll?' Harry found it ludicrous and laughed till it no longer felt uplifting. But the word needed repeating. 'Payroll! That sounds insufferably boring.'

'Less boring or more boring than being assistant to the Junior Assistant's Assistant of the Department of—' she waved a hand to indicate the rest of the precocious title, 'et cetera?'

'Well,' Harry stirred from the chair and grabbed a couple of flying paper aeroplane memos from the ceiling, 'so far this is the best job the Minister has given me.'

Hermione flashed a brief, darling grin into the back of his messy head. Perhaps that was all Harry needed: a chance to do something no more important than checking memos and transcribing correspondence. It wasn't saving the world, it wasn't heroic in the least.

But that was the point, really.

-x-

I.13

Malfoy showed up at Harry's desk by three, pulling a distraught expression and examining a roll of parchment.

'Potter, I need to ask you something.' He observed the scattered desk, covered with memos in disorganised piles, broken quills, ink pots, and parchments hanging from a nearly closed drawer. 'Er, is now maybe not a good time?'

'Now's perfect.' Harry leaned into the seat and adjusted his spectacles. Malfoy continued to attire himself as he had at Hogwarts, with a dress shirt, a tie tugged loose, colourless robes, and black trousers belted at a lean waist. He was trim, pale, graceful, and handsome enough for second glances but not to rile the envy of competitors. 'Hermione told me you're working accounts.'

'Payroll.' He was relieved Potter didn't sneer. 'Not the most exciting job the Ministry has to offer, but I enjoyed it at the embassy in Schneestadt. You're working for Mrs Weasley today, yes?'

'And I hope to for a while yet. She's out. Do you need to see her?'

'Absolutely not,' he said dismissively. 'It's you I need to speak to.' Malfoy examined a chair with wooden armrests and blue upholstery.

'You may sit, Malfoy,' invited Harry, careful to sound only professionally friendly.

And so Malfoy sat, still glued to the parchment. He left it on the rim of the desk, and Harry saw that it was a payroll chart, with Harry's hours and different positions shoved into a table.

'I just want to make sure this is right,' Malfoy said, pushing up his shirt sleeves to his forearms. The faux daylight from the enchanted windows caught fine white hairs on immaculate, fair arms. Malfoy, reflected Harry, seemed physically undamaged from the war that had ravaged and scarred so many. Undamaged. Justice had missed an opportunity. And yet there was Draco Malfoy, perfect, whole, undisturbed, working at the Ministry long enough to still cram himself under the tough skin of Harry Potter.

'Now,' Malfoy unwittingly brought Harry to the present, 'you've worked in all these departments this past week, is that right?'

Harry took the table and examined it. Malfoy's handwriting, incredibly neat if condensed to fit the sixteen inches of usable space, had delineated the past seven days of Harry's life. How odd to see one's life categorised so crudely. But he returned it to Malfoy with a nod.

'Yes, that's right. I get a base salary. It's not different for each department I work in.'

'That's true, but to keep the Ministry records, and your personal file, as accurate as possible, I need to be as accurate as possible.'

'Isn't it a bit dull?'

'Compared to what? War? But I get to work with goblins.'

'You're part of GLO?' Harry used the common abbreviation for Goblin Liaison Office.

'Gringotts actually prints and distributes paycheques and handles deposits.' Malfoy snatched a glance from Potter. 'We work for the same department, believe it or not. My office is down the hall, but I'm never there.'

Harry tilted toward the parchment again. 'This is wrong, actually.' He held his forefinger above a departure time. 'That was my fault. I meant to leave a note.'

'So what time did you leave that day?'

'Seven-thirty.'

After penning a circle around the timestamp, Malfoy blew on the parchment, and the ink with the inaccurate time vanished. He scribbled in 7.30 and examined his handiwork. Harry tilted a little closer, and Malfoy caught a scent of soap and shampoo, and a tang of aftershave. Harry flattened a hand on the top of the desk, and Malfoy caught a glance at it, mesmerised by a little brown freckle near the wrist. 'Really, Potter, seven-thirty is late to be leaving work.'

'I was copying papers for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. It seemed best just to finish them.' _And I didn't have anything better to do_ went undeclared, yet roared angrily through Harry's mind. 'Look, Malfoy, about Saturday night, at the party—'

'You don't have to say anything. I suppose I was rude.'

'But that's what I was going to say.'

'We were both rude then.' Malfoy rose, surveying at the desk to be sure he had all he'd brought with him, and couldn't be sure since any object would be lost in such a mess. He had a fleeting look with Potter while securing the chart. 'Have you thought any more about leaving London?'

'I cannot see how it's possible.'

The same familiar excuse. A relief to know he was not the only one who found things impossible in the optimistic years of post-Restoration. 'Why not?' Malfoy didn't mean to prod or goad, but with Potter the inclination to do so came as naturally as breathing. They had been goading each other for nearly ten years. 'You've money enough to buy your own house.'

'I tried that once. It didn't really win me over with joy and happiness. And I don't want to try again.' Harry couldn't drop the inclination that Malfoy wanted to set a hint. 'Why do you ask?'

'Don't be paranoid, I was just curious. The thing is,' and Harry felt it coming in Malfoy's dramatic pause, 'I'm due to visit my mother again next month. Will be gone for a full week. If you wanted to, I'll let you stay at the manor.'

_The Manor._

Harry only ever thought of it in capital letters. With dreaded italics. _The Manor_.

He swallowed. 'Malfoy, er—that would be tremendously awkward.'

'Why should it be?'

'I wonder,' Harry growled. 'Could be because last time I visited, we had a corking time. Locked in a cell. Voldemort prancing like a pony and making merry.'

'No cause for anger, Potter. I was there, too. I never go in that part of the house anymore. Can't bear to. I mean to have it redone someday, or,' he shook his head as vague impressions of ire trilled through him, 'or have it completely torn down. It's halfway falling apart as it is. How do you think I feel?'

'You still live there.'

'Right. And your digs are a falling down building in London that smells like Hagrid's feet on a good day.'

Harry knew he should've been insulted, the Harry of Hogwarts years would've been had Malfoy said such a thing. But now it was different. He laughed now, and Malfoy smiled with him. Shared mirth was a healing treasure that consumed the negative.

But to stay at the manor, where Dobby had obtained his fatal wound, where Pettigrew had perished . . . Harry had a perverse reaction: he _wanted_ to see it. A glorious moment of masochism. He invited it in, let it stay, let it nettle. What might such a nettle do to his wayward mind? A ripple of lunacy came on, as a hotness in his stomach, and he felt a new desire to destroy the ghosts of the past. It was only by taking a journey through the darkness that he could turn his face again to the light.

Malfoy took Harry's characteristic silence as a chance to prattle on. Should it only take a little convincing on his part, the rest of the plot would simply fall slickly into place.

'I'll be gone. No one lives there, just two old house-elves, both of whom would be very happy to have someone new delivering orders for a week. It's in the country. Nearest neighbour is five miles. Nice walks, gardens, that sort of thing. Those are unchanged . . . Afraid you might have to deal with some of Wiltshire's grand spring flooding, however, but that only means the grounds are a bit soggy and the river branch crests its banks. Seventy-four rooms at your disposal, minus the five that I blew up in my post-war angst, the drawing room being one of them. The excellent collection of vintage wines survived. Damn wine cellar will outlive us all. And London is so far away you won't even know what people are saying about you. Even the stars are silent.'

The proposal fascinated Harry. That he should find it from Malfoy reeked of the macabre. But he wanted so desperately to get away, if only for a week; to get away from the chatter, the noise, the abundant monstrosities of city life, for seven consecutive days. To investigate the manor that had been such an epoch in his fight against Voldemort, and, indeed, against the Malfoys.

Draco divined Harry's saintly notions.

'Unless you've something against staying at the ancestral home of Dark Arts supporters who've been less than candid about their attachment through the years, you should accept.' Malfoy found the corners of his mouth tugged upward when Potter's green stare met his. So that was it. The awkwardness was a desire to disassociate with everything related to the Dark Arts. 'Ah, I see, I see. The wound of the immaculate angel has been unearthed. Very interesting.'

Heat cooked Harry's face. He thought of sending Malfoy off with an argument, but the inclination died when Hermione reappeared. Her loafers stalled as she came upon the two men, both standing, formal and stiff, and relieved to welcome her as a distraction.

'Hello, Malfoy.' Hermione handed Harry a takeaway tea, claiming one for herself. 'How are you enjoying your job so far?'

'The same as Germany,' he said, adding an affable yet shaky grin. 'At least I know what I'm about. I wonder if I might have a private word with you?'

The tea in her hand shook imperceptibly. Through a tight mouth she agreed, then told Harry to get back to work, and closed the office door.

Over-brewed tea cracked a whip against Harry's remiss thoughts.

-x-

I.14

'Have you a question of payroll, Malfoy?' Hermione took to her desk and set the tea in a place she wanted to be sure it wouldn't be knocked by her occasionally clumsy elbow. With a gesture, she offered Malfoy a chair. He declined, opting to stand. His tall frame, with broad shoulders and painfully alabaster skin, provided an illusion, among Hermione's perfectly organised office, that he was bigger than the boy she'd hated at school, who used to love provoking Harry, who used to call her foul names. He used to, but the menacing look wasn't in him anymore.

The names were gone. The broken intentions disintegrated. The silly games vanquished. The only games he played now were with himself: how much sincerity to show, how much to trust, how much to admit.

'No, I haven't a question about payroll. I wondered if we might talk about Potter for a moment.'

This was remarkable. She stared up at him, with colourful memos flying about his diaphanous head, and tried to appear unsurprised. 'What about him?'

'You should persuade him to leave London for a little while.'

'To leave—' But she wouldn't continue.

'Mrs Weasley—er, Hermione—he's living at the Leaky Cauldron, avoiding people and becoming the source of jokes and ridicules.'

'I cannot stop what idle tongues say about him.'

'No one can. And, what's more, you shouldn't have to.'

'He used to be very social, used to go to parties, and liked going. Then it changed when he realised that people began to see him as being famous for being famous.'

'I've sensed that. Look, um,' now he took the chair, 'I've just made him speechless a moment ago by offering him a stay at the manor for a week. I'm going to Germany to visit my mother, and I thought it might be a beneficial interval for him.'

'The manor? Malfoy, don't you remember what happened—?'

'Of course I do, but I explained to him that that area of the house no longer exists.'

'He can't accept.'

'I think he will.'

'Why?'

'He'll want to see it again. You can't shut out everything awful in your past, Hermione. You certainly don't expect Harry Potter to do that.'

'But it was so stupid of you to offer the manor to him. Really, Malfoy,' she nearly rolled her eyes, 'the manor! It was a horrible, horrible . . . So stupid of you!'

His eyes widened at the insult. 'Yes, I gathered that afterward by his whole speechlessness dilemma.'

'If Harry needs to get away, he can always come stay with us,' Hermione said it to herself for comfort. Draco Malfoy was not permitted to know _her friend_ better than she. 'He knows that.'

'You're missing the point, Hermione. He doesn't need someone to stay with, someone to watch over him. What he needs is time alone. You think it's easy on him, going to your house every weekend and seeing your wonderful little life with, what's his name, Ron?'

Hermione darted her eyes around in an attempt to collect protestations and truths. But this was _Malfoy_! What did he know of this?

She raced a gaze across him and understood. As though it was written as prose upon him, she understood.

He'd gone through the same thing.

Tentatively, eager to sort through this turmoil of Harry's, Hermione cleared her throat. 'And going to Germany helped you cope with the end of the war, the end of the Restoration?'

A smile took over. He recalled Hermione as he'd seen her during the Restoration of Hogwarts, busy, capable, bossy, demanding. He'd appreciated her then. She had been what the authorities needed, and she had been what her friends needed.

'Yes,' he said at length, 'yes, it did. People will still talk about him, that cannot be stopped, he'll always be Harry Potter, but he must become resilient to it. Persuade him to go to the manor.'

'You do realise that is asking a lot—even for me.'

'He's not as reluctant as you think he is.'

'I imagine you're wrong. What would happen if he did go? Everyone who reads the _Prophet_ will know he's staying at Malfoy Manor.'

Malfoy manipulated a series of wonderful lies, and produced a sculpture of wondrous proportions. 'Then we'll not let on that he's at the manor at all. It's easily played out, you see. All you have to do is make a big fuss about having Harry stay with you at your place in—in— What's its name again?'

'We live in Royal Hetherington-Upon-Kind,' Hermione said automatically.

'Yes, yes, that's the place. Blather it about the office that Harry's visiting you for a week, allow your husband in on the ruse, and you have yourself one Harry Potter very safe from the _Prophet_'s devilishly annoying social column. Harry gains a week's holiday. I get the peace of mind knowing that damn eyesore of a mansion has been put to good use. And you and Ron may find an improvement in your best mate. Sorry, call me optimistic, but I don't see how any of us lose.'

Hermione's features were unreadable. Malfoy believed she'd laugh in his face and throw him ignominiously from the office, slamming the door repeatedly on his fingers for good measure. If that were the case, if she tossed him on his backside, Malfoy promised to step away from it forever.

What was his obsession with becoming part of Potter's life? Post-Restoration in Schneestadt meant long hours of a different restoration: restoration of himself. He wanted better friends than he had. He wanted to be a part of something important. He wanted to do something good for someone else. And the only people that were always doing good works were Harry, Ron, and Hermione. The Golden Trio had been the nucleus of Restoration at Hogwarts. Before securing a job with the Ministry's embassy in Germany, Malfoy had witnessed their willingness to sacrifice, aid and manage.

It was harder to create than destroy. That was what the Restoration years had taught him.

He was brought back to his senses with Hermione's gentle laugh. She shook her head but beamed.

'You're just the same, Malfoy. Always ready with a scheme. And for what? To get your way!'

'I'm hardly the same,' he intoned rather bitterly. 'And let me help, Hermione. You can trust me now.'

She, too, remembered the Restoration, the first week of it, when they had crawled around the rubble of Hogwarts, repairing, fixing, and always seeing Malfoy with his wand tip seaming shattered pieces. An upright Slytherin in an upside down world. They'd even conversed. Instigated by Malfoy, now that she thought back on it. Instigated by him, little by little, tersely, never apologetic. Just the understanding between them that they had lived through something tremendous, bigger than they would ever be. Lived, and were forever united by life.

Trust a Slytherin? But that was impossible for a Gryffindor to do.

Yet they had all been wrong about Snape. For seven years.

She met his gaze, the ice of his eyes warmed by tendrils of hidden passion, and slowly nodded.

-x-

I.15

'Have a good night, Potter.'

Harry looked up from his desk and saw Malfoy's triangular back disappearing down the corridor. 'You too, Malfoy.'

It was the first greeting of friendship passed between the former enemies.

'Harry!'

The quill dropped from his hand at Hermione's shout.

'Get in here, now!'

-x-

Harry and Hermione had known each other for so long, had a relationship roped by a filial understanding, that they had an unfortunate habit of speaking at identical times.

'You don't really want to go, do you?'

'I want to accept Malfoy's offer.'

But it did not always happen that they said the same things when they spoke at identical times.

-x-

A week later, Ron stood at an old cooker with his hand lazily twirling over a stew pot. He'd finally given up the frilly pink-checked aprons his mum had made, a provision for Hermione when she and Ron married that winter, poor Molly actually believing that Hermione would cook. The pinks were gone, replaced by common maroon, and one navy with a bunch of peppers on. But the maroon reminded Harry of the perpetuity of Molly Weasley's blessed jumpers she knitted for him every Christmas.

The fatal truth was that Hermione worked, Ron stayed home. She brought home what they required to live on. Ron kept house. Did laundry. Cooked.

Ron had adopted an expanding conceit about his pie crusts.

He stopped twirling and the spoon in the steaming pot of smelling-good stew stalled and flopped to the rim. Ron folded his arms. He sought Hermione for comfort, to unscramble the words in the tatters of his brain. She did this by wiggling up her brows. The knots untied within him.

Then, to Harry, gnawing on a heel of a rosemary baguette, Ron said, 'You do realise this is completely mental, yeah?'

'Mm,' Harry nodded and swallowed hurriedly, 'right, yes, completely. I'm mental. Mental as can be.' He had a swig of tea and gnawed additionally.

Hermione rubbed Ron's shoulder. 'It's only for a week. You know he should go. It would be good for him.'

'It would be _mental_ for him. He'll snap in two. Get barky. We'll have to take care of the sorry sod for the rest of his life. Like dear old loony Lockheart.'

Harry chuckled. Ron whimpered quietly at Hermione. Harry could hear a cuddle happening behind him.

'You can't think this is a good idea,' said Ron, arms looped about her, trying the sweetness of him to ease her into his way of seeing things. 'You really don't want him to go.'

'Ronald,' Hermione turned on a chiding voice that rang like the aftermath of bells, 'he's _going_. Some ghosts have to be destroyed this way. You're just sore because you hate seeing Malfoy turn a new leaf.'

'Turn a new leaf, ha!' grumbled Ron. 'I'd like to turn a new leaf on _him_. Er,' his eyes widened, 'that didn't sound so pervy in my head before I said it, I swear.'

Harry chuckled again, finishing off the heel of bread.

'You shush your cackling, Potter!' Ron shouted in jest indignation. 'You don't trust Malfoy any more than I do, do you? No, I bet you don't. Because he's got sense, he has,' he made a point of telling this to Hermione, who had a sympathetic upturn to her alluring lips. 'None of this gadding off to Wiltshire! Isn't it a lovely time to go to Wiltshire! Yeah, I believe it is. All that sodding rain. Malfoy Manor! And I won't be having a part in this ruse of yours, if that's what you call it. Lying, it is! I've never lied a day in my life!'

Now laughter came from Hermione and Harry at Ron's expense. He ignored them, dashing about, cooker to sink to oven to table, preparing dinner.

'You know it'll be hell on us to lie to my mum! Blimey, Hermione, my mum!'

'Oh Ron, I have that all worked out.'

He flung the apron off to the back of the shabby but comfortable sofa, and sat at his typical seat. His scowl remained atypical. Harry helped himself to the meal, Ron's cooking becoming a favourite of his, even to the point where he couldn't tell the difference between Mrs Weasley's blancmange and Ron's. He remained quiet and ate, allowing the flippant spouses to argue insincerely.

Hermione explained her idea, briefly, brilliantly. 'We'll just tell your mum that it's my week to cook. That'll keep everyone _miles_ away.'

Ron's scowl loosened to a fat grin. He appreciated his wife's cleverness, as well as her occasional inclination to do something just a little bit wicked.

Hermione finished with a flourish. 'And if they should pop round for tea, we'll tell them Harry's out. It's easily solved. This is _so delicious_, Ron! Oh!' She dampened his appreciative cheek with kisses. 'I'm such a lucky witch!'

The habit of blushing at compliments or good deeds Ron had never really lost. He touched her hand, but that was all, until the sanguine saturation faded. 'More stew, Harry?' He waited not for a response but filled the bowl.

Hermione reached for another bread slice. 'So what are you taking with you, Harry?'

'I don't know,' he replied awkwardly. Had they decided he was going? The final decision was left to Ron and Hermione, as were the most important things done in his life. 'I don't have much.' He hung his head over the bowl as he said it, but he didn't want pity. It was a casual observation. His room at the Leaky Cauldron was empty of personal belongings. He had some books, some robes, Muggle clothes. All the rest were fragments of his history. He would leave his room at the Leaky Cauldron and hand the fragments over to Ron and Hermione. An act he should've done years ago.

'I still think it's mental,' Ron said, after a swallow of good bread. Then tension of indecision returned. Harry and Hermione waited. Soon, Ron was full, set back, belched gratefully, and rubbed his still-slim girth proudly. 'I suppose I'm ousted on this vote. Two to one! Hardly fair. But there you have it. Democracy. And, anyway, Harry, it's not like you've gotten yourself maimed or kidnapped or killed any time recently—' Hermione smacked him at the elbow while Harry smiled. 'What? All I'm saying is that he's got to be careful. Specially round the Malfoy place. Well,' he sighed and held Harry's innocent gaze, 'as long as you promise to send us an owl or Floo us every day—every day, mind you—then I guess it's OK.'

'All right, guess I'm going then,' said Harry, comforted by Ron's support, even if it arrived reluctantly.

'But I want a message from you _every day_, Harry, or I'll Apparate myself over there and make sure you're alive. _Every day_.'

'Every day,' Harry nodded into the words, 'absolutely. Every day. Heard you the first four times, Ron. Is there any more of that blancmange from last night?'

-x-


	4. Chapter 4

**Episode Two: MANOR**

-x-

II.18

Almost two weeks after Malfoy's proposal, Harry arrived at the Ministry a few minutes after dawn. Inclination, a ticklish little fly of a thing, told him that Malfoy got to work early and left early. Malfoy had always been an early riser. Harry remembered that from days of Restoration at Hogwarts. In the repaired Great Hall, Malfoy would be there, finishing a light breakfast, reading the _Prophet_, or talking with one of their old schoolmates, a few times even with Professor McGonagall. Always early, wide-eyed, ready, willing to work. Harry had no idea if Malfoy lazed off while at home for holidays.

The door to Malfoy's office, open five inches only, echoed the raps of Harry's knuckles. The door opened, Malfoy behind the desk. Already armed with a quill and parchment, one lone memo-plane of low-priority white circling above his head. Paperwork was pushed aside as he saw Harry.

Harry shut himself in. 'This is your office? I've been in bigger wardrobes.' It was six by six metres, lined with shelves, room enough for Malfoy's desk, a spare chair, a plant stand, a coat hook on one wall, and very little else. The room conjured the illusion that he was closer to Malfoy than they'd ever been. Perhaps that was caused by Malfoy's casual attire; he had not yet donned his tie, and high buttons at the white collar were undone.

'It is a little small, isn't it?' Malfoy surveyed the four walls, Harry briefly, then shrugged. 'Like I told you: I'm not here much. And you're here early.'

'It was the only time I thought you'd be in your office.'

'A correct assumption. Very astute, Potter. You wanted to see me?'

The decision hung in the air. Draco patiently attended Harry's reluctance. In the guest chair, Harry sat at its edge, watching Malfoy.

'What happens if I say yes?'

'I'd say good.'

'And you won't be there?'

'No.' Amused, Malfoy grinned tiredly. 'No, I won't be there. Aside from seeing my mother, seems I'll be dabbling in a bit of Ministry business as well. The Minister heard of my plans to revisit.'

'You'll have to work while on holiday?'

'It's not a holiday. And yes, I'll be working. Don't act surprised. It's easy work. Goblin relations, in a short summary. They're still a little uncertain about these Restoration rules instigated by our establishment.'

'Do finances really interest you?'

He lifted his shoulders for a second time. The morning made him most insouciant. He wasn't interested in conversing till he'd consumed at least two cups of tea. Potter happened upon him a quarter through the second dose. 'During the early months of the Restoration, I discovered a flair for working. And what would be better for a Malfoy than to work with money? If he couldn't be dabbling in the Dark Arts and kissing the robes of some murderous lunatic who nursed a god complex, that is.'

Meant as a joke, it failed. The atmosphere cloyed with bad taste and poor judgment. Malfoy attempted recovery.

'It's not what I saw myself doing when I was taking O.W.L.s, of course.'

'What had you been thinking then?' Harry pressed the question using a tone of curiosity. He remembered Hermione saying last week that Malfoy had turned a new leaf. Perhaps he had. Perhaps he'd never been a certain way at all. Like Snape. Harry recognised that he knew absolutely nothing about Malfoy. As an eleven-year-old boy, Harry had made a snap judgment, and hated Malfoy based on an outspoken arrogance inherited from his social class. And hated him for six years. The seventh year didn't count. Harry had no one to hate in his seventh year except Voldemort. Who _was_ Malfoy?

'I had just a vague image of being absolutely void of ambition for the rest of my life. Living only as a gentleman, owner of a fine estate, dabbling in things that weren't my business, like the governing board for Hogwarts. The Restoration changed all that. I became ambitious. My father became a broken idol. I sent my mother off to her old school friends in Schneestadt. And I found work. Never seen my mother so proud of me.' The words trailed off, he blinked uncomfortably. 'Damn it, I hate talking about myself. What about you? I doubt this is what you wanted to be doing. An assistant's assistant? Doesn't sound like the motivated and impressive Harry Potter whose back I cleverly snuck behind while at school.'

Harry folded his arms, determined not to answer. But it slipped from him just as if he'd been conversing with Hermione or Ron. Yet they hadn't talked about it either. It hid. It wouldn't be spoken of.

'I wanted to be an Auror.'

Malfoy had thought so. Auror Potter. Such a flair to it. 'Funny that the Restoration should bring me motivation, and yet steal yours. Why don't you? You'd think the Ministry would give anything to have you as an Auror. The man who defeated Voldemort! How could they turn that down?'

'I had help defeating Voldemort.' That was the only supportive insight. 'Look, Malfoy—' Harry tilted so that his elbows were on the lip of the desk, and Malfoy less than three feet away. The fair grey eyes, no longer so cold, wore a thin glaze of innocence Harry hadn't expected. 'I'm prepared to accept your invitation.'

'Marvellous,' Malfoy said, but the word was waved aside.

'But I don't understand what your intent is.'

'My intent is for you to stay at the manor, get out of Leaky Cauldron for a week, away from Royal Weasley-Upon-Kind, and have yourself to yourself. The Restoration repaired the wizarding world of Voldemort's destruction, but it didn't repair you.' Malfoy paused, immersing Harry in hard speculation. Harry couldn't look away. 'Did it? The war devastated you, Potter. And a taproot of that devastation came at my house. I'd like you to go there, become acquainted with any unresolved issues you may have about that night, until you believe that you did the best you could given the circumstances.'

'And what do you get out of it?'

Malfoy had his brows up. 'Peace of mind, clearly. I still have to live there, you know, and I still have to battle the memories, the embarrassment, the guilt. After leaving Hogwarts, it wasn't so bad. The house was filled with people, coming to see my mother, friends of hers, sometimes the occasional friend of my father's, very rarely a friend of mine. Crabbe's dead, and Goyle still stays away, which is all the better. If he came round, I'd probably hex him. But after Mum went to Schneestadt, and I went back to the house, the busyness of her pre-departure vanished and the house was lifeless. Vast and empty. Just two house-elves and me. So, I had a mental moment, practically destroyed the drawing room and the north wing of the house, then sealed it off. I went to Germany. Now it's your turn. If you went, I'd know you were there again, and it won't seem like you're so upset with me, for my part in what happened.'

'I don't really feel you had a hand in it at all. Had I held a trace of blame for you, I would've cursed you at Madam St Eve's party. Four years ago, you were following orders, like everyone under Voldemort did. I blame Voldemort, always have, always will. He caused all these ordinary people to betray, lie, murder, and then made it seem like they chose to follow him—_chose_ to follow him. Chose is a very important word. Very significant. They thought they had a choice. That was the greatest evil of Voldemort's power. You should be made to see that. He made you believe he was worth suffering for. And he made your mum suffer, your dad, and you. He manipulated you, through your father. Voldemort was a very smart man, you forgot that, didn't you, Malfoy? He knew your attachment to your father was important to the two of you. Your father wanted you to be like him, and because of that you wanted to be like him. Voldemort used that to bring you to—what was the phrase you used?—kiss his robes. Voldemort lied for everything he had. In the end, he really had nothing but a weak army of lunatics who no longer knew how to live for themselves. But you weren't like that. In the end, you stepped away from him. You chose to. While it might not seem like much to you, I appreciate your sense of guilt. Maybe you have worked through it. Maybe you really do want to be a better person.'

'I am a better person,' Malfoy replied. 'I was hoping we'd put the war behind us, put behind us the night we met in the Great Hall, before the Sorting, and become friendly acquaintances who work in the same department. We see each other practically every day. And I don't cherish the notion that you still resent me.'

'Resent you? No,' Harry leaned away and crossed his arms, 'no, I really don't resent you. Voldemort was the only person I ever resented, ever pitied, and he's gone. Everything and everyone he touched was ruined. But as to becoming friends with you, Malfoy, that is not a decision or a choice.'

'You mean that it's gradual. Or chronologic.'

'I mean that I'm not sure if you and I can be friends at all. The war may have improved you, but I don't trust you. I'm accepting your offer to stay at Malfoy Manor because I want to go back there. I want to see it. Relive it in my memories. Feel the pain of what happened. I want to _remember_. But if you muck this up somehow, if this is some sort of trap, you'll pay.'

Malfoy stopped short of a smile, but the dust of mirth sparkled in his eyes. 'It's been a long time since you've threatened me.'

Harry stormed for the door, saying, 'I won't make a habit of it if you don't.'

But the door slammed shut against his nose. Harry spun round, wand out, pointed at Malfoy. His hands were atop the desk, palms up. He was disarmed.

'If you've calmed down, Potter, we should discuss how you're going to get there.'

'I had thought—'

'Flying in. Broomstick. Naturally, you would.'

Harry's shoulders dropped. He put his wand away. He was surprised to see Malfoy smirking. The smirk turned vague, yet remained. Harry began to feel self-conscious, like he had the night of the Spring Soiree. Had he amused Malfoy somehow, perhaps by being predictable? But everyone knew Harry Potter rode a broomstick well. Better than any Seeker for any of the British teams. He so rarely rode for pleasure anymore. And Malfoy . . . Malfoy had been a Seeker. Not outstanding in the skies, but showing more talent than all Slytherins who failed to take his place. Lacking talent may have been compensated by having an astounding broom between his legs. Until Harry's Firebolt came along. . .

'You always did enjoy flying. So did I, if memory serves. But you're a faster flier than I am. Yes, yes, I grudgingly admit it. You'll fly ahead of me and lose me. Rude of you. No, we'll Apparate in. Side-along.' Malfoy reconsidered this possibility. 'Yes, side-along. Probably best. I removed the alarms about the manor, but if I missed one . . . It's best if I Apparate in with you to start. You'll be free to come and go as you please after that. Shall we leave from the Leaky Cauldron after work next Friday?'

'Side-along? We? Malfoy, you said I was going _alone_.'

'I'm not reneging the statement, Potter. You will be alone. I can fly to my mother's house in Schneestadt from the manor grounds. Can't Apparate to Germany; it's too far, would take too long, anyway. We can Apparate to the house and I'll give you a tour. You'll quickly be free of me. Does this sound all right? Or would you rather I give you directions, you tour seventy-three rooms with the help of two old house-elves? They're not very quick. You may not get through the tour by the time I'm due back.'

Malfoy's dry humour, a cross between wit and sarcasm, amused Harry as much as Ron's accidental physical comedy and Hermione's guile wickedness. But he did not laugh. He wasn't relaxed enough to laugh. The only place he laughed anymore was in the Weasley household, Ron at the cooker, and Hermione talking about her day at the office.

Weasley-Upon-Kind, Malfoy had called it.

For a second, Harry tried to picture Malfoy there, at one of the casual suppers of good bread and hot meat dish. The image was not as obfuscated as he'd anticipated. But Ron kept giving the blond head looks that screamed nefarious actions, and Hermione attempted conversation, with a not so feigned interest in Germany.

'Potter?' Malfoy said the name to wake Potter from an odd trance.

'You should come to dinner Friday,' Harry blurted out. 'We can leave from the Weasleys. Would you like to?'

Draco stalled. 'Isn't that a breach of etiquette? I haven't been invited by Hermione or Ron, and I'm sure they wouldn't like it if I—'

'I'm inviting you. It'll be fine. If you're serious about wanting us to be friends, that means forming friendships with them. All that's bad was in the past. Will you come?' Harry was just anxious to see how Ron would take the news.

Malfoy nodded slowly. Harry noticed the smirk had fled. And so he too fled, fearful that Malfoy would tip to the opposite scale of uncertainty—and change his mind.

-x-

II.19

Armed with Malfoy's answer, Harry knocked on Hermione's office door. He entered after a beckon.

'Where've you been?' Hermione asked as soon as she saw his face. He was barely inside when accosting began. 'I've been looking for you. I even had you _paged_ throughout the building! I was getting worried. Next I was going to Floo the Cauldron and see if you were sick.'

'I'm here. Been here since early this morning. I was talking with Malfoy. What time is it? I can't have been gone that long.'

'It's nearly nine.'

Harry did not say it aloud, but he was astonished that he and Malfoy had talked for almost two hours. If all the minutes he'd spent arguing with Malfoy through the years had been tallied, it would not equal a hundred and twenty minutes. 'Hermione, have you got a second?'

'Question is, have you got thirty? There's a lot of work to do today, Harry.'

'But this is important.'

Hermione's expression read that so little in life was more important than work. She lingered at the rim of the desk, lumbar upon it, and waited with that 'I suppose I'll listen to your little exposition, Potter' look that he'd missed, that she had often given during school years. Sometimes it went to Ron now, if he harped about the quality of eggs and flour, or the inconceivable cost of almond paste.

The plan of reaching the manor, how and when, was related. And when it came to the part of inviting Malfoy to dinner, so that they may leave from their house, Hermione straightened.

'Ron'll be furious.'

-x-

II.20

Ron laid a hand over an ache in his side. Gulping for air, he went for another round of rambunctious laughter. 'Stop! Stop! I can't take it anymore!'

'But then Troffelsen came down, swooping in on his broom like a pig with a stick up his bum— Can't you just see his little piggy eyes—?'

'And his little piggy nose! He is an _ugly_ man!'

'So then it's Garrison, Adderley, and Needham—'

'Please stop! I can't take anymore!'

'They're all lined up, the three of them, three Chasers aiming at the Keeper. And you know who the Keeper is for Chudley, yeah? Kendrick "The Killer" Kilgren! This titanic, hairy beast of a man, practically takes two brooms to keep him flying— He's standing guard, right, ready for these three little men coming for him! And what's he do! No, seriously, Ron, what's he do?'

But Ron was laughing much too hard to form words. He stuttered briefly, then broke into another guffaw that filled the house. His face was purple and he might've been close to suffocating, but death was coming on blissfully, in laughter, as it had a habit of doing for the Weasleys.

'Stop, Malfoy, stop . . . It's not good for me!' Ron inhaled. 'It's not good for me!'

'Kilgren puffs out his chest,' which Malfoy mimicked, tightening his hands to fists, 'and he took in a big breath,' and Malfoy's chest just expanded further, 'and blows!' The breath he held in exploded between pursed lips, like a boreas. Through smiles and chuckles of his own, Malfoy managed to get the end of his tale finished. 'The three little pigs nearly fell off their brooms. Not so much from the puff of breath from the big bad Kilgren, but from—'

'The smell!'

Ron gave an exhausted sigh, hand over his smarting stomach muscles, and leaned into the sofa. 'Ah, that's a fine tale.'

'It's a true tale.'

'So you actually worked for the Harriers?'

'No, not exactly.' Modesty was not a new thing for Malfoy, yet a younger, more naive Malfoy would've loved a chance to indulge and falsify. He examined this change briefly, passed on it, and opened up to Ron about his work for the Ministry, and through the Ministry a chance to frequently attend games of the Heidelberg Harriers. As succinctly as he could he spoke of himself. The business of vanity was not as fun as it had been in his youth, when opulence and class mattered.

Ron's laughter was the same as it had always been, even after so many years. The Weasleys were poor but proud, but happy, but forgiving.

And Harry . . . Malfoy shook off the reflection.

But everyone is the same after a war. The enemy cares nothing for class. Neither does death.

-x-

II.21

'They seem to be having a good time,' Hermione said as she helped Harry in the spare room, in the back of the house. From the first night he slept there, he was reminded of the cupboard under the stairs at 4 Privet Drive. Not much wider, just as incapacious, with sorry white walls in need of new paint, and dust that crumbled from the exposed tresses above should the front door open and close or the wind blow too harshly.

A tiny window, with old, wavy glass, showed a simple view of the simple garden, and the little knoll where the tall yew tree grew. Hermione and Ron always said they meant to take out the yew tree, plant another. 'It has such a funereal appearance,' Hermione had said. But Harry liked the tree. Reminded him of battles fought and won. The third time he met Voldemort and won. Of Cedric Diggory, and that sometimes battles were lost, and the battle for life defeated.

'I can't believe how well Ron's taken to Malfoy,' Hermione said, and Harry noticed a critical undertone.

'It is odd,' he agreed, helping Hermione sort through books Harry had taken from the Leaky Cauldron and brought to Weasley-Upon-Kind. 'But Malfoy does have stories to tell—about Germany, I mean. If I think on it, I can't calculate how long he was gone.'

'Just after the end of the war.' Hermione scanned a book title and put it into Harry's small trunk set open on the wooden floor. 'I think you'll want that book when you go. It's the one about Godric Gryffindor.'

'Right, thanks. So after the war?'

'What? Oh, yes. As soon as we were finished at Hogwarts. You remember, don't you? I'd decided to go to Australia, then have a holiday with my parents so I could fill them in on what happened, soon as we had done all we could at the school. You and Ron stayed a couple days after I left, but Malfoy and I left the same day. He left in the morning. Came over to say good-bye. I don't remember what we were doing, but it was the three of us. He said good-bye to you, too, but I guess you didn't hear him.'

'He said good-bye to us?'

'We were the only former students still left at the school, the four of us. Everyone else had gone. Neville, Ginny, Seamus, Dean, Luna—everyone.'

'Really? I don't remember that.'

'We were busy. It was the middle of August. We'd stayed for months. Malfoy, too. I heard he went back to the manor for a little while, couldn't stand it, and absconded to Germany. Is that what he told you?'

'Very like. I remember him at Hogwarts, but I don't remember him leaving.'

'He was gone a really long time. Years. I wonder if he missed England. Or anyone he left behind. None of us missed him. Never even noticed he was gone. But he stayed all that time at Hogwarts, helping where he could. And left. A hot day, I remember it. In the middle of August.'

Harry ignored the remark, having no reply. With a point of his wand, he brought a stack of books out of the trunk, old school books, and left them on the shelf with the others. Accidentally, in a moment of passing affection, he let the tips of his fingers slide down the worn spine of his first year Potions book.

The middle of August. And yet he remembered nothing.

-x-

II.22

The time for good-byes arrived again. Nearly four years later, at a very different spot. An undulating, rain-logged Devon landscape set the scene. Woebegone winds trembled the trees about the tiny house. Smoke from the chimney spiced the air. From the distance, standing at the bottom of the knoll, Harry gazed longingly at the house. Quite cosy, with curtains in the windows, a wreath on the front door, and a plume of smoke rising in a curl between enormous oak trees. He sighed and turned.

Hermione and Ron and Harry shared a farewell huddle. Dribbles came from their eyes, and they had no sense as to why.

'It's ridiculous,' Hermione reproached, using a palm to wipe the wet from her lashes. 'You'll be back.'

'I'll be back,' said Harry, adding a defiant, single nod. But he, too, was touched by an incogitable sadness. 'I suppose it means that things are changing again. We can always tell when they are.'

'Change is good,' Ron said bracingly. He hiked up his trousers at the waist. His lessons in pomposity came from his eldest brother Percy. 'I accept change. Change is the way of life. It perpetuates life. Yeah, yeah, I like change.'

'I'm glad one of us does,' Hermione said. When she stepped to Malfoy, hesitation ignited. She stopped herself short of hugging him, and left her hands at his shoulders, donning a matronly expression of smoothing the cloak. 'It was nice of you to visit us, Malfoy.'

'Thank you for having me, Hermione.' He analysed her with a lightly raised brow, pale and nearly invisible beneath a crescent lock. 'And I also thank you for allowing Harry to go.'

'I have an ulterior motive, I'm afraid. Harry promised to spy on the treatment of your house-elves, and report the findings back to me.'

Malfoy smirked. 'He'll find no fault, I assure you. Harry will be taken care of. Mothered, even.'

She stepped away before he could divulge anything further. Ron and Malfoy shook hands. The clasp declared what quietly glided through their minds. _We survived a war. It's because of us that the world will be better tomorrow._

Harry stood beside Malfoy. The wind curled around the lea and whipped the ends of their cloaks together. The corners snapped. Malfoy's chin-length hair fell across his forehead, and he tucked it hastily behind his ears. Up went his hood. A common shield for him from elements and unseen eyes.

'Ready, Potter?'

'Ready.' He took a final glance at Ron and Hermione. A thick bang of clouds hung deep on the horizon, and the final golden aureate of sunset crowned their buoyant tops. For the briefest moment of time, Harry saw his friends at peace.

Then the sun was gone. He took a step forward, fear tangling his insides. Out of nowhere came a hand in his. Comfort sought comfort as fingers entwined.

-x-

II.23

His eyes opened to the pale quarried stone of a house he'd visited once too often in his dreams, and once too often in life.

Malfoy let go of his hand. A dagger of jeopardy paused Harry's breath and rested in the hollows of his knees.

'It's funny,' but he didn't smile to suggest humour, 'but for the first time in years, I'm afraid of something. Of that house.'

Malfoy let his sight leave the distant prospect, home to him, and watched Harry. Nothing could be immediately said. They enchanted the luggage and walked on. A path through the side gardens led to a grand entrance. Tall, windowed doors to a central hall, Malfoy said.

Just inside these doors, leaving them open, they paused. Two house-elves were in eager attendance. As shabbily dressed as Dobby had been, Harry noted. But they did not look cold or unhappy, and indeed were delighted. They did not speak before being spoken to.

'Harry, these are our—my—house-elves. Buckles,' here Buckles bowed and nearly tripped over the hem of his tied toga dishcloth, 'and Affinity.' Affinity curtsied, holding out the edges of her dotted and stained garment, which Harry thought might've been stitched from the remnants of a tablecloth.

And now Buckles was able, at last, to speak. He burst with it. 'Mr Potter's coming has been told to us by the Young Master, sir! Buckles and Affinity have readied the Red Room for him, sir!' This remark said to Malfoy. He gave an approval. 'The fire's warming it up very nicely, sir, very nicely indeed! And Buckles will send up a hot water bottle for your feetses, sir, to keep them cosy when it's time for sir to go to sleep!'

Malfoy had started enchanting Harry's luggage again, but Affinity waved the effort aside.

'Affinity and Buckles will get sir's luggage, sir! Young master will not trouble himself over it! You two go and settle yourself in the music room! Affinity will brings you in some brew!'

'We'll be there shortly,' Malfoy instructed. 'I'd like to start Harry's tour on the grounds first. I think enough daylight remains, if we hurry.'

'Very good, sir.' Buckles bowed, not so steeply as before, and Affinity followed, while Malfoy exited.

Harry, ruminating on the two house-elves, followed closely behind Malfoy. The blond head was revealed when the hood was drawn back, and the sun's golden rays only intensified the odd colour. It seemed to reflect the hues of the sky. Blue, blushed with pink, dotted with cinnamon. Harry took his eyes from it as soon as Malfoy drew to an exponential halt at garden's beginning. He surveyed which direction they ought to take first. Harry's heart thudded as they headed to the left, the side of the building where the drawing room waited and tempted. The collection of fear and turmoil banged against his kneecaps.

-x-

II.24

Malfoy seemed composed, but he wasn't. He congratulated himself on paying attention when he was younger, to the prattles of his elderly relations, who told him time and again historic details about the manor. 'When am I ever going to have to know how old the stained glass is?' he recalled whining to his father, circa 1987, and his father had been nothing but placating. 'This is all to be yours, my son. It might behoove you to learn a thing or two about it. You don't want Grandfather to write you from his will, do you? Pay attention to him. There's a good boy.'

Always the good boy. Always the good son. Always the halo, the wings, the angelic effects.

He glanced subconsciously at Harry, wondering at the readability of his thoughts. But Harry had other things on his mind, and reading the thoughts of Draco Malfoy was certainly not a high priority. Draco was relieved, for at that moment his thoughts touched impurity. He was not angelic. He was not the good son.

At that moment, Draco was evil, and could've tackled Harry to the ground.

And then what . . . and then what . . . He could not picture. The mystery of it thrilled him.

-x-

II.25

Harry listened acutely to Malfoy. He felt as though his livelihood depended on how well he listened right now. Malfoy's intonations and inflections, always so upper-class and arrogant, had grated on his nerves through the years at Hogwarts. It helped that nothing classy ever came from Malfoy's tongue. They'd rarely exchanged words that were not emboldened by mutual hatred.

'Relax, Potter,' Malfoy said as they finished a spin of the heirloom garden, 'I'm not going to quiz you.'

But before Harry could do anything but snicker dumbly, Malfoy went on. This gazebo, this shrub, this peacock, this sculpture . . . This, this, this.

Harry saw genuine pride in Malfoy. It would be so easy to make fun of this, a little boy fond of his daddy's home, but Harry couldn't. Pride made him an imbecile. Pride of ownership, Harry knew so little about it. He owned but one artefact he was proud of. And all the rest, the war relics, he could do without. As soon as he realised what it meant to part himself from them, they would be removed from his possession. He knew that someday, perhaps after he stood in the drawing room of Malfoy Manor and remembered, he would have to part with the relics. It would mean taking a step forward, acknowledging that the war was fully over, that those who had died for the good fight were not coming back.

'Malfoy?'

'Yes?'

They were nearing the turn of the manor, the turn that would reveal the drawing room. Harry halted. The light was dimming in the west, and the east was thick with early stars. Malfoy blinked; the wind was cool and biting at his eyes. They were watery and red, fit for tears.

'Do you regret—' Harry faltered. But he inhaled, armed for a second try. 'Do you regret anything that happened—?'

Malfoy lifted his chin, as if in a slow-motion reaction to a verbal lob across the jaw. He scanned the sky, and as a star fell he let his gaze leap to Harry's. 'It would take me less time to tell you what I don't regret, rather than what I do. To tell you all my regrets . . . That would take the rest of our lives. And you would be bored of it soon. Up ahead,' now he indicated the turn they were about to take, 'that will show you what my words can't.'

Malfoy disappeared around the building's edge before Harry. He waited, and felt he moved like water in a gulch. He flowed around the corner. Malfoy rested ahead, sitting on the grassy emerald carpet, the cloak around him as a wave. Harry went to him and was glad to sit. For what he looked upon shook him more than anything he had yet seen.

Nothing since the war had affected him like this.

The drawing room was a shell. Windows were silhouettes of stone, panes, broken glass. The walls had tumbled in spots. The flame of hate had come: destructive, maleficent, and thorough. All was singed black, as though a dragon had wrapped his ceaseless fire around it.

Harry could only gape.

_Justice_, he said to himself.

'Revenge,' Malfoy said aloud.

And Harry listened, hearing Malfoy's taste for vengeance, and understood that Voldemort had done more than come to Malfoy Manor. Voldemort had violated it. He'd razed and befouled Malfoy's pride of his ancestral home. And the single way to purge the taint of Voldemort's fingers was utter annihilation. Only then could Malfoy have his home returned.

Harry finally had his fill of the stable mayhem. The wind tousled Malfoy's cape across the grass, an obscene black lined in midnight blue. And Malfoy lay on his back, his arms behind his head, and closed his eyes to the sky. Harry stood, looking down at him. The cape left triangles at Malfoy's shoulders and fluttered at the hems. As moving wings.

Harry had never thought of it before. Malfoy wielded magic, and fire through magic. It burned in his blood, hot like lava, simmering in his body. Revenge and justice, the need for them, the source of heat, the volcano.

Malfoy lifted open one eye, saw Harry, and lifted the other. He sat up at the waist. 'What?'

'I was just remembering . . . Do you recall the time the fake Mad-Eye Moody transfigured you into a ferret?'

But he wasn't upset. Faint amusement lingered in him, as did all the mutinous imaginings of long-lost childhood. He'd been young, deserved it. During endless nights, when he saw the sky turn dark then light again, he wondered how he'd escaped with so few scars. He'd been so lucky. And yet deserved worse. 'And you were thinking of this _why_, Potter?'

'You never in your life resembled a ferret. You're something larger and more malicious.'

Malfoy's gaze dropped like a weight. 'It's not right for you to see in me things that others do not see.'

'Probably not. If it's new to me it's new to you. When did you do this?' He gestured to the drawing room. Weeds had grown between toppled stones, and bull thistles blossomed purple in the windows. The high-storey roof remained intact, but Harry could see into the second floor, an ominous sign that Malfoy's intent to destroy had lasted, perhaps over a period of days or weeks. He'd chipped away at it. A little bit at a time.

Now Malfoy rose, and the wind had tightened its grip, with a nasty bite, and Malfoy wrapped the cloak around him. 'It must've been three years ago. Or more than that. It's hard to keep track of the years anymore. They're gone, vanished, everything between the day I left Hogwarts and my return two weeks ago has vanished. But it was after my mother left for Germany. When everyone had gone. And I realised no one was coming back. I always hated that room. Lucius used to discipline me there. In a chair next to the fireplace. Remember? That chair. Oh, he never took a cane to me, nothing like that. His verbal lectures seared me thoroughly enough. Mother wasn't much for discipline. I was her angel. And all angels are descended from heaven. She was gone, and I took to the room.' He shared a brief glance with Harry. 'A little bit at a time.'

Harry had thought so.

Malfoy shivered. 'It's getting cold.' He analysed the stars, the last ribbons of daylight between clouds in the west, and turned his back on them. 'It's going to rain tonight. We'll go inside for a basic tour, so you don't get lost looking for the toilet in the middle of the night. I could use some tea. It's been a long day.'

'I feel we've travelled hours,' added Harry. 'When are you leaving?'

Malfoy merely snickered until they'd reached the grand side entrance. He held the door open, stalling with Potter, and replied. 'You won't see me tomorrow morning.'

An enigmatic answer. Malfoy had always been something of a puzzle. Too brash, too populated by thorns, too elusive for Harry to solve.

'I knew you better when you were my enemy,' Harry found himself saying to the back of the shiny blond head.

Malfoy spun to Harry, removing his cloak. Emotionless but for a grey hue of despair in the momentary tightening of his mouth. 'That is one of the finest phrases. "I knew you when. . ." You'll have to remember that.'

The topic was dismissed, though Harry rather longed for a discourse about their tumultuous history, ever since their first night at Hogwarts. Draco would hear none of it. Buckles came for their cloaks, nodding, simpering at Harry, doting on his master, and asking about afters or tea. Malfoy's instructions were delivered smoothly. Harry realised he would have nothing negative to report on Malfoy's treatment of his house-elves. He treated them well, fairly, and even seemed fond of them. And Sirius had once remarked that the measure of a man was how he treated his inferiors, not his equals. Memories of things Sirius had said or done often came to Harry unbidden. He'd rather that file of memories remain closed forever, so sharp was the pain of loss, so sharp that it dulled the senses.

To see Malfoy treating inferiors, house-elves, as well as he treated anyone cultivated more perplexity. Malfoy, who'd never deigned to greet a wizard whose blood lines were not identical to his, who'd called Hermione a Mud-blood, who'd fraternized with Death Eaters, who Harry still suspected carried the Dark Mark on his forearm.

It was true. Harry knew the old Malfoy better, the enemy. Enemies were easy to understand. Their motives were clear. Their intents were often shallow. Malfoy had been readable at school, as readable as the Marauder's Map, and the only enigma was the purity of his motive. To impress his father. To do what was expected of him.

In that sense, how different had they been? Harry had frequently wondered whether or not James Potter would be proud of the antics his son had accomplished at school. And Harry had done nothing less than what was expected of him. With the philosophy of a simpleton, Harry saw that Malfoy had done the same. Impressed his father. Done what was expected of him. Yet Malfoy had failed. Gone was his father, the Death Eaters, Voldemort. With his mother in Germany, who was left to impress but himself?

Harry followed behind Malfoy, a lean figure of some height, the whiteness of his work shirt reflecting lighted sconces as they wound down a narrow hall with an elevated, bevelled ceiling.

'So . . . We've just left the side hall, right?'

'Yes. It's the only door I use now.'

Harry found out why when they entered the great hall. Insides squirming, he recalled the scent, the nature of the echoes against pearly marble columns and high ceilings, crystal chandeliers and spindle-legged tables. The screams started, then the echo of words said that night, by enemies with faces and enemies whose physiognomy he could no longer recall. Details were gone, but memories rely on emotional reactions for their power. Details are pithy, secondary factors. Harry paused before the doors. The ghosts would come and let him in.

Malfoy had meant to disregard the entrance to the drawing room. Harry had already stopped. Beside Potter, Malfoy examined the wooden grain, immaculately preserved, as though what lay behind them would be the pristine opulence of old.

'They're sealed, Potter.'

'I figured. I can't even smell anything.' He looked at Malfoy. 'You're very thorough.'

'Did everything but put up a wall to hide the doors.'

'Why didn't you?'

Malfoy found it difficult to speak his motive. It had been so real to him; ineffable though real. His solution rested in allegory. 'I was an only child, you know, and I always had to find ways of entertaining myself. In the garden, I could watch the ants for hours. I would cover them up with earth and watch them squirm free. It didn't matter how much earth I put over them, they would eventually find their way out. A lot like this drawing room, these doors. I could cover them up, but they would still find their way out. And I'm too old to be amused by it anymore.'

Harry understood. Enemies had a way of expressing themselves to be understood. Friends needn't have said a word. Friends experienced their finest conversations through the chattering silence of empathy.

-x-


	5. Chapter 5

II.26

'This is my favourite of the sitting rooms,' Malfoy announced. He held open a wide, white door by its old-fashioned metal handle, and gestured for Harry to enter.

Harry's tightened senses instantly relaxed. Blue paper on the walls, silken paper like in days of yore, transported him to the nonexistent realm between land and sea. White marble around the fireplace added to the simple illusion. Gilded landscapes and seascapes invited him into their display of seasons. Globular lamps in art nouveau promised cheery light on dark nights. The oldness mixed with modern furniture: a blue and ivory and green striped couch, matching chairs. The room was visual splendour and emotional serenity. Harry had not expected to find such a place in Malfoy Manor. Especially across the hall from the drawing room. And he hardly thought Malfoy would claim it as his favourite of the home's parlours.

The mantel clock chimed nine-thirty, in a high-pitched, small ding. The hours in Roman numerals, indicated by two graceful, lacy fingers.

He saw why it was called the music room. A white grand piano and golden harp rested in one corner. In a curio cabinet lay a child's violin beside its worn bow. Malfoy noted Harry's interest.

'None of us play. None since great-grandmother. Old Nanna used to play all of these. The harp was her favourite. I remember her plucking its strings, and whenever I hear one now, well— It's the only nice thing I remember about her. They're only decoration.' He lifted the lid from the keys. A minor chord droned. The strings whined and howled disobediently. Malfoy quickly closed the lid. 'And I can see why they're only decoration. I hope you weren't looking forward to playing them.'

'I wouldn't know how.'

Malfoy pulled his lips in, but not well enough to hide a smile. Unheard laughter came from his eyes. 'That would hardly stop anyone. Ready for tea? Or something stronger? I did mention the wine cellar.'

'No, thank you.' Flustered, Harry took to the oversized sitting chair. 'But I would like some tea—if that's all right.'

'Of course. I'll leave you for a moment, if I may. I'd like to check for post, and I'll put in your order for tea.' Hands in his pockets, Malfoy left the room. The door remained open to the 'east hall', as it had been named, and Harry listened for the clicks of loafer heels to be replaced by the ticking of the mantel clock.

Tea at Malfoy Manor. He'd survived Voldemort to have tea at Malfoy Manor. To stay at the manor for a week. He'd endured watching Malfoy lord about without repulsion. So little repulsion anymore. It had been replaced, like one sound for another, by a quiet, unassuming need. An unknown need.

Harry was more sure of it when Malfoy returned, when Affinity served tea, when no interruptions bothered Harry's survey of the twenty-year-old Malfoy. The need was there. A desperation. It had been witnessed in Malfoy before, Sixth Year. He'd been thin, a little green, sleepless, irritable. The ashen hue was a Malfoy trait, and the pleasant heat of the fire had warmed Malfoy's cheeks to a healthy pink, while cold rain started against the panes. His cheekbones were chiselled and defined, hollows beneath. And a nameless hollow had appeared at the base of his neck between collarbone points. His hands were flat, white and blue, the pale blue marking the veins. Blood that had once been his peacock's tail, the source of his vanity. Now it was only blood, as easily spilled as anyone's. Malfoy had always been lean, and Harry had so little mind for the appearance of people to suppose Malfoy's leanness was rather excessive.

With some age in him, Malfoy now resembled his father less and his mother more. She had an elegance to her features where Lucius had sharpness. And while the epitome of conceit, Narcissa Malfoy had an emotional reserve, an even-tempered sense of sweetness, an understanding of what it meant to be compassionate. A trait not earned through the genes but through imprinting.

No matter the high potency of Draco Malfoy's outer tranquility, Harry heard a quiver, wind through the feathers of a bird's wings, that informed him of negativity.

Affinity had gone, and they had spent the last two minutes in silence.

'Is there something bothering you, Malfoy?'

He tested tea with a sip, mocking glance over the brim at Potter. Defiance in the look if not humour. 'That you keep calling me Malfoy, for starters.'

Harry had never called him anything but. 'Calling you Draco would seem foreign.'

'Calling you Harry would seem foreign. All things are foreign until used abundantly, er, Harry.' He put the tea aside. He wasn't interested in tea. 'About the drawing room—'

He halted, noting the emerald in Harry dull to a darkness. Harry, afraid of the past, afraid of a little room destroyed. Harry. It was still foreign, like an unknown language, like a new feeling. Like Germany the first two weeks he lived there. The name was in Germany. They knew it. If Harry Potter was not an omniscient god, at least his name was.

'I sealed off the drawing room before I left. Sealed up everything. The house, the grounds. It would've been impossible for anyone to get in without my knowing.'

'You were in Germany.'

'I had to protect the house. It is—' he roved his eyes to the ceiling, and Harry assumed Draco was thinking of the whole entity, the house as a being, 'it is my father's house. And you don't know how that thought, those words, and my inclination to preserve this place—you don't know how it's cursed me. Too late, I sealed it up and left.' Then he found commiseration and anticipation in Potter's look. 'The boundaries I placed are diminished, especially the ones to the drawing room. Done for your sake. You can enter it any time you like. The doors are not locked and sealed for you.'

'I have to Apparate in?'

But Malfoy shook his head just once. 'I meant to be rather literal, sorry: Only you can open the doors.'

Harry leaned into the seat. He hastily set aside the tea. 'So only I can go in? Just me. But, how? That's advanced magic.'

'Advanced yes. Binding a spell to a single person is not difficult, in its simplest expression. That is magic. Magic is the essential part of a single human. It is not the act committed by several wizards at once. Magic depends on the determination of the individual. It's magical theory, Potter. I can allow you to enter the drawing room and no one else because I expressly wished it to be so. You, Harry Potter. As long as you are Harry Potter, and as long as I am alive and Draco Malfoy, then you are allowed to enter the drawing room. Do you understand?'

'Well, yes, but I— I didn't know you were—'

'Such a good student at Hogwarts? No, I wasn't.' His gaze trickled away. 'I did well in some areas, but it never mattered. I never took education very seriously. One of my regrets that would take a lifetime to tell you.'

Harry remembered that Malfoy had said his greatest ambition at the time he took his O.W.L.s was to be a gentleman with no occupation but lording over the manor. 'There is great determination in you, isn't there? If you never learned it from a professor, you studied it independently. I suppose you did all of this before you went to Germany.'

'The evolution of the self is eternal, Harry. We never stop changing, never stop learning. Just because I left Hogwarts doesn't mean I never picked up a book again.'

'Of course not. Among my few possessions are books. It's the wizard's undeclared creed that we must keep learning. But you have learned more than I since leaving Hogwarts.' Harry winced in a calculating way Draco recalled from Potions class. 'You're still keeping something from me.'

'What makes you say that?'

'Because I've distrusted you for nearly ten years. I always knew when you were up to no good. It became a habit of mine. Apparently it still is. What are you hiding? Why did you want me here?'

'Ah, you seem to think I'm desperate for your company. Flattering yourself again, Harry. I invited you for all the reasons I stated previously. They are true reasons, and truth is unchangeable. A piece of your war against Voldemort was fought here.'

'And if I walk into that drawing room tomorrow the pieces will be put back together?'

'You ask me that question as though I have the answer. I hardly think I have. All I can say, Harry, is that you will walk into that drawing room because you're the hero. That's what heroes do. It's your occupation, being the hero. And an occupational hazard happens to be travelling to Malfoy Manor and reliving some rancid moments. I have already faithfully recalled what happened that night. But can you recall it?'

'Not in good faith, no. I hardly remember. I remember what happened afterward.'

Malfoy raised a hand. 'You don't have to speak it. Most of us know your story by this time.'

'What happened to you?' Harry had a sudden bold inclination to ask. He'd been focused on his own reactions that night, but what about the others? And if Malfoy had been there for Voldemort's wrath, surely that pain was unsettled. 'What happened to you after we escaped?'

Abruptly, Malfoy jumped from the chair. The teacup overturned as the table was bumped. The brew spilled across the floor. The teacup lost its handle and obtained a chip at its base. Harry raced for his wand, ready to mop up the brew and repair the cup, but he stopped. Malfoy leaned over the broken pieces, gingerly gathering them in his hands, and replacing them to the table.

'It won't work,' Malfoy said. 'They were Nanna's. Nasty woman put a curse on them before she died. They're impervious to repairing spells. She said that whenever we broke one, we'd be reminded of how disappointed she'd be. So just leave it. Affinity!'

The house-elf popped into the room. 'Young Master calls?'

On his knees, Draco swerved towards the elf, expression unreadable yet pitiable. 'I've broken another one.'

Affinity's brown eyes widened at the sight, shreds of white porcelain and blue paint and gold leafing. 'Young Master has, indeed he has! Two this week! Affinity takes it away, sir, like so, sir. See what good Affinity brings for Young Master! Does sir be wanting more tea with Harry Potter?'

'No, thank you.' Draco returned to the chair. The ease had deflated from him. Harry realised Draco's hands were shaking, from wrist to fingertip. 'We're to retire shortly. Goodnight, Affinity.'

Affinity paid her respects through goodnights to her young master and Mr Potter. Harry continued to analyse Malfoy. Suddenly the pinkness in his cheeks no longer seemed a sign of bonny health. And the leanness at his waist was accentuated by a belt that could not be drawn tighter. The thin hands quaked as though the cold breath of December lay near. A stone sunk into Harry's insides.

'Are you ill, Malfoy?'

But Malfoy tongued no answer. Harry had an idea.

'Please don't make me threaten it out of you. Are you ill? Yes or no.'

Malfoy ached to hide his hands, but it was too late for such a fool's trick. Harry, keen, vigilant Harry, had already noticed. What else had he seen? 'Just like at school, isn't it? Investigator Potter out searching for clues. What has troublesome Draco been up to now? No good. He's always up to no good. Always obeying the orders of others, he is.'

Malfoy sucked in a breath and flattened himself against the chair. Harry had leaped over, drawn his wand, and stuck it against Malfoy's neck. For a moment, it flashed through Malfoy's mind that Harry would kill him. End the misery. And the battle would be finished. A war with no victor.

The two minds connected, before Malfoy could practice Occlumency, and after Harry used Legilimency.

Harry stuffed the wand back into his robes. Malfoy hadn't a second to relax barriers: Harry thrust his palms to either of Malfoy's cheeks. Harry dived into Malfoy's eyes. But it was too late to read anything further.

'No, don't,' Harry murmured. His hands ached in a strange manner. 'Don't, Malfoy, don't. Let me in. Let me know what it is—'

Malfoy's wrists met the inside of Harry's forearms. Harry's hands dropped. His fists clenched in a reaction. He forced his fingers open and held his palms to his eyes, disbelieving. They were red. Malfoy manoeuvred from the chair and stood before the mantel. Harry watched, disturbed.

'You are sick. Your skin's on fire. Why didn't you say something before?'

Malfoy gripped the mantel for a final moment. He turned, face expressing intense resolve. 'There is nothing wrong with me that I don't deserve.' A daring step forward brought him within reaching distance of Harry. To want to be near someone once so hated but now so relied on amused Malfoy. Even amid turmoil, Harry amused.

'Not just the flu, is it?' The enquiry hung indivisibly between them. 'What's wrong with you? Why did you really invite me here?'

'My reasons remain the same. It's because you're the hero. This is what heroes do.' In camaraderie, Malfoy gripped Potter at the shoulder. His smirk was twisted, erasing the last trails of misery. He returned to being Malfoy: boyish, haughty, self-centred. 'I think I'll head to bed. Oh, right, bed! I forgot to show you the upstairs, what with the drama of your imagination and all.'

'But you are sick.' Harry could not let this point go unsaid one final time. He thumped out of the music room behind Draco. 'I know you're not going to tell me what's wrong with you. I suppose I wouldn't tell you if I were sick, either.' He blindly followed Malfoy's ascent of the back staircase. 'But you know what's wrong with you. I saw that much before you closed off your mind. Good job of that, by the way. I forgot that you were good at it.'

'Thank you,' was heard quietly ahead.

Harry tightened his mouth. The blond hair bounced at Malfoy's steps down the corridor. Sconce lights came to life as they approached. Soon, the whole corridor was illuminated. Malfoy stopped and analysed their position.

'Bothersome house. Sometimes I get lost. Red Room,' he touched a forefinger to the dent at the bottom of his chin, scanning two doors until finally pointing to a closed door on the right, 'Red Room is this one, I think.'

Indeed it was a red room. Named, Harry analysed quickly, for the red wallpaper and curtains on the four-poster bed.

'Half expected it to be covered with the blood of the non-believers,' Harry joked as he surveyed what was to be his sleeping quarters for the next six nights.

'Your mind has been ruined by war,' Malfoy retorted, meaning it to sound as maudlin and hopeless as produced. 'Hope it suits. If you need anything, let Affinity or Buckles know. Pleasant dreams, Potter.'

Draco frowned, more in pleasure than in want of it, when the door slammed shut on his nose. He spun towards Harry.

'Our conversation is not over.'

The merciless authority in Harry was a secret thrill of Malfoy's. He responded well to threats. 'Yes, well, you think it isn't but,' he let out a dramatic yawn clearly feigned, 'I'm really quite exhausted and I have an early day tomorrow.'

Harry crowded Malfoy at the door. He hated it, but Draco had to lower his gaze, lower his silvery gaze, to look him in the eye. How dare the laws of the universe get it wrong and make Malfoy _taller_ than he. But he felt the heat and drew in a calming breath. 'This isn't funny.'

'Think back. When you do, you'll realise I have never laughed.'

'What's wrong with you?'

'As you discovered, Harry, that is a secret. As all my ailments were in the past, so they will always be.'

Harry's mind traversed a pensive plain. Voldemort. It had to be Voldemort. He'd touched everyone in Harry's life, including secondary villains like Snape and Grindelwald and Malfoy. What did it mean? What could have happened? And the other unanswered question. 'Did Voldemort do this to you?'

But the question only released in Malfoy an arduous sigh and a slump of shoulders. He edged Harry away gently, a push against the chest with the side of his arm, until they were an endurable width apart.

Silence fell, broken by a faint draught through the flames in the grate.

Harry took a step ahead. Malfoy backed away. Already, it was beginning, the dance between them. It had gone on at school, the endless pirouettes, the cycles of abhorrence. Then Harry broke hatred's enchantment forever.

'Draco . . . I-I want to help you.'

The first trickling tear was cold against Draco's cheek, but it dripped off the roundness of his upper lip as he lowered his head. He turned his face from the light. 'I am a selfish creature, Harry. You have known me since I was eleven, have I ever been anything but selfish? And so, I ask you, the great unselfish Harry Potter, whether or not the very selfish Draco Malfoy would ask you here if there was not something in it for him.'

Harry blinked. His eyes burned in dryness, while Draco's were wet rivers. 'I don't believe that. You can't want me here. You're not that fond of me.'

'Whether I like you or hate you, a selfish creature would endure torture to get what he wants.'

The laugh was empty, lifeless, and haunted Harry. Like the night he saw Malfoy outside Grimmauld Place and remembered the Death Eaters. It was a trick. A lifeless laugh but with life hidden inside.

Malfoy wobbled suddenly, stopped laughing, and steadied himself against the nearest object. He rejected Harry's helping hands.

'I just need to get to bed. It's been a long day. And we've travelled for hours, you and I.' He chortled again. But it was cut short. He collapsed against Harry.

Blinded by confusion, weighted by Malfoy, all of Harry's might hollered for the house-elves.

To his shock, they appeared immediately. Affinity shrieked and Buckles gasped, but both quickly shared the burden. Harry thought that if he could just get to his wand . . . Yet as he laid Malfoy on the floor, he saw no wand would aid, and his medical skills were unfit. The only thing he could do was allow Affinity and Buckles to show him the way to Malfoy's room.

-x-

II.27

A creak was followed the closing of a nearby door. Harry's lids drifted upwards. Sleep fled, and he remembered the ordeal with a flush of horror. He reached automatically for his glasses from the bedside cabinet, disturbed to find they were still on his face. He blinked against the silver light of pre-dawn through the windows as he reached the door. The latch clicked and hinges whined plaintively. The corridor was tested before he entered. Fear no longer held Harry captive. Uninhibited, he dashed the length to Malfoy's corner room and peeked inside.

The bed had been made, the room tidied. Neither Draco nor house-elves remained. Perplexed, if not a little worried, Harry flipped around. The corridor lay empty.

'Buckles.'

The house-elf materialised in Draco's room. At once he went to Harry with a bow. 'Good morning, sir.'

Harry had not yet figured out how he was able to summon the two Malfoy house-elves, and the answer remained evasive even during seemingly endless hours of insomnia. Such a useful tool need hardly be analysed. 'Where's Draco?'

Buckles had a protruding brow that rose up in demonstrative facial expression. 'The Young Master has just left, sir.'

'Damn it.'

Buckles blinked astonishment as Mr Potter popped away.


	6. Chapter 6

II.28

'Damn it,' Harry cursed again, having Apparated just outside Malfoy Manor, in the south garden, to find himself in a t-shirt and pyjama bottoms unfit for a Wiltshire morning. A mixture of mist and fog imbued his skin. He was suddenly damp and shivering. Arms folded, he scanned the grounds for a sign of Draco. His eyes had not far to go. Bare-footed, he dashed across the flagstones, dew collecting at his heels, but desperate to reach Draco.

As Harry had thought, Malfoy had his broom in one hand, his common black travelling cloak with the underside of deep midnight blue, and the hood raised to the tepid morn. The grey atmosphere magnified paleness, purple half-moons beneath his eyes, yet had brought a greenness to the iris so often unseen.

Draco, Harry calculated, was not surprised by the interruption of his morning's departure. He accepted it calmly. But he leaned into Harry slightly for the first words. 'You look terrible. Didn't you sleep?'

'Never mind that. Are you sure you should be leaving? After what happened last night—'

'Concerned for my health as well as my mental capacity. That's very Gryffindor of you.'

'Piss off, Malfoy, it's just a question. You're obviously not well enough to be going all the way to Germany.' A glance indicated the broom. 'Especially if you're flying.'

'Not all the way there, only part of the way. And, yes, I'm going. I have to go. It's this insane sense of duty I have. A promise was given, and I must go.' He leaned tiredly on the broomstick, a German name emblazoned on the handle, and tenderised Harry with a broken smile. 'You're not going to play hero and try stopping me.'

'Not if you gave your word to your mother. I'm sure she needs you. But I really wish I knew whether or not you're lying.'

'Lying. About what?'

'Going to Germany to see your mum. I have a feeling you're lying about it.'

'And where else would I be off to in this charming weather this bastardly early in the morning?'

'Fair point, but I still think you're hiding something.'

'Of course I am.' Malfoy used the tip of the broom handle to playfully tap Harry at the shoulder. 'I am a Slytherin. We are cunning. And the cunning collect lies. Please don't try and find me. You'll only make matters worse.'

Harry had no right to ask where Malfoy was going, if not to Germany. 'You should've left earlier in the morning, then, if you didn't want me to pester you with questions. You should've left last night.'

'I should've not become so ill in front of you either, but planning all seconds of my life is very dull. But I do honour my promises, to the best of my ability, and this is one that I must see through. It isn't the promise to a Dark Lord, to my parents; it's a promise to myself. Here.'

He made an impatient waiting gesture. And Harry, freezing and tightening himself against the permeating cold as he stood, watched as Malfoy tossed the broom into hover. In a swift manoeuvre that must've taken years of practice, combined with an innate vanity, Malfoy removed the black cloak. Executed with awkward friendliness, he dropped it over Harry's shoulders.

'This is a Wiltshire cloak,' said he, bringing importance to the plain article by giving it a county name. The suede laces were looped below Harry's neck. Draco tilted away and tried finding something in it to admire. Black-haired Potter and his green eyes, and all the black making them greener, his hair slicker, all of him a little darker. 'This is a gift. Should you find yourself on another adventure, it will provide you with many uses, I'm sure.' He pulled up the hood and left its hem drooping towards Harry's brows.

Harry felt immediate warmth. The cloth must have been gently warmed by Malfoy's heat. The reminder of that hot skin caused Harry to wince, to prod around in Malfoy's mind. But it was the same results as yesterday. Malfoy met his gaze as soon as he felt the untraditional shuffling of thoughts in the back of his mind.

'You are stealthy,' Malfoy complimented. 'It is little wonder you stand undefeated. Well,' his mood brightened while the day darkened, the rain steadying, 'have an enjoyable week at the manor, Potter.'

'But you're coming back, aren't you? You are coming back. It is your house, Malfoy.'

He shouldered the broom and sighed with a gaze to the house. The kitchen windows were alight, golden and inviting, and he could imagine the smell of bread baking, and hear the comely chatter of Affinity and Buckles. Then the waking dream faded, and the cold stings of reality wound from the grass like ensnaring serpents.

'It is not my house,' he said to Harry. 'It is my father's house.'

This cryptic message was a repetition of what Draco had stated the night before. Harry had noticed Draco repeating certain phrases. 'Are you trying to give me some sort of clue, Malfoy, about where you're going?'

'You ask too many questions. I have to go. I'm already running much later than I intended. You're always standing in the way of my plans.'

'Then perhaps you should not invite me into the middle of them.'

Harry spat it out, as though this was the start of a real verbal confrontation, but Malfoy merely laughed it off. Then he ended the distance between them, with his arms full of Harry. The scent of the Wiltshire cloak in the rain, the scent of the earth, the soft scent of cleanliness from Harry entwisted Malfoy. He loitered, waiting for Harry to struggle free. Harry had his arms smashed between his chest and Malfoy, an unintentional barrier to touching bodies. But they were freed easily, and flattened on Malfoy's back. The simple white cotton shirt had grown damp in the new spring rain. He was not cold, and Harry remembered the sensation of intense heat. It rose from his skin, fire on the inside. He seemed to smother and steam. For this moment, Harry had nothing to say. He held tightly, forgiving, forgetting, just breathing and being. And whatever that was never mattered for more than a moment.

Draco shifted, first his feet to fit more naturally against Harry, and then his mouth moved downward to find Harry's ear. 'We're friends now. But friends still keep secrets.'

Harry reluctantly opened his eyes. Malfoy's warmth oozed into a startling affection. Harry began to stir. 'Tell me where you're going. Tell me what's happening.'

'You're the hero.' Now Malfoy broke the embrace. The cold wind devastated Harry's body, now longing for a ceaseless continuation of warmth. The cold intensified when Draco grinned haughtily. 'Potter the Hero. He figures out my secrets.' He renewed his nearness to Harry, and tilted so that their cheeks barely touched. Thin tendrils of Draco's hair brushed Harry's skin soft as a whisper. 'Good luck.'

Harry had a fistful of Malfoy's shirt to keep him near. All he could do was force a gaze, though he tried no Legilimency, and find some truth in Malfoy through the eyes. A gentle slide into the soul revealed the desperation, the haunting guilt, the eager absolution. 'You want me to find you. You want my help. Malfoy,' Harry reinforced his grip, 'tell me where you're going!'

'There is fire in your eyes when you're angry.' But his eyes overflowed, puddles in the rain. 'And I can't tell you. I really have to go.' He shook Harry's hand from his shirt, retrieved his broomstick, and started for a boscage at garden's edge. Harry, lithe and adroit, jumped in front of him. Malfoy started to swerve, but Harry was there. He tried again, and Harry was there. It was just like at school. Potter always there. With the glory and the salvation of the wizarding world lodged in his lightning-shaped scar.

'Tell me where you're going!'

'I can't!'

'Malfoy!'

'All I can say is that I'm going to Germany! Germany! I'm visiting my mother! Is that understood, Potter?'

Then Harry understood. He straightened and watched Malfoy. It was brilliant, subtle but brilliant. 'Germany to visit your mother. Right.' In a flash, Harry recalled the way their friendship had developed over the last three weeks. The unusual first meeting at the Spring Soiree, the casual chats at the office, and all culminating in Harry's visit to Malfoy Manor. 'This is it, isn't it? This is why you asked me here. So I would help you. All that talk about the drawing room, visiting the past, forging a friendship with each other, that was all a lie. Cunning Slytherins.'

'That was all true, paranoid Gryffindor. Every word. I wanted nothing more than to claim a friendship with you. But my cunningness was in making you believe a lie before you believed the truth. Really, Harry,' he pushed Harry away at the chest, 'I have to go. Don't make it so bloody difficult.' As he turned for that final walk, he was relieved when Harry grabbed his wrist. The long goodbye had a tumultuous wave of pleasure.

'I can do it, Malfoy. Whatever game you're playing at, I will beat you. I always have.'

'This is not a game. This is me, the coward, standing in front of you, the great Harry Potter, and asking for his help. Oh no, I assure you: This is most definitely not a game.'

'But that's gone now, that animus between us. We're friends.' Yet even as he said the word it wasn't right. Harry pursed his mouth and let go of Malfoy's wrist. His awareness of Malfoy intensified. The wetted yellow-silver hair, the passionate grey stare, the squared shoulders, the dent in the chin, the nameless hollow at the base of his neck, and the provoking smirk. Harry echoed the word, 'Friends.' And echoes have a way of emptiness about them. The real interchanged for a hope.

Malfoy erupted in a short grunt of indecision and agony. The limited expectations of himself brought a result. He locked to Harry with his hands, pawing at the t-shirt. For a mere glimpse of instant, he cast into Harry's eyes an understanding, and read no hidden protest there. A wonder of new achievement unfolded as lips swept lips. It had never intended to be a kiss that lasts briefly, but a kiss that transforms love into eternity. Harry stopped breathing as his heart swelled and desire erupted. He had no thought but that he was alive, that Draco was alive, and that no magic in the world was as powerful, as inexhaustible, as love.

The sense of forever split in two. Draco bowed his head, leaving a hot, white hand at Harry's neck. He squeezed affectionately, left one more kiss, then rushed away.

'Friends,' was all he said.

A dazed Harry saw Malfoy stomp five steps ahead and pivot. Then he vanished. Harry licked his lips for a lingering taste of love ignited.

'Friends. Right. Damn cunning Slytherins.'

But he had to sit where he stood, for his knees were weak, and his wrecked mind shifted to find the reservation of strength.


	7. Chapter 7

**Episode 3: Cloak**

-x-

III.29

The bayberry wreath of goodwill flailed on its wire hanger in time with the pounds of Harry's fist. After long, long minutes, Hermione appeared, her face thick with sleep, in her rose-hued dressing gown and tired slippers that had once been white.

'Harry?'

'Harry!' Ron came up behind Hermione and took her elbow. 'Get out of the way, Mione, let the man in! In you get, Harry. What are you doing here? I haven't got breakfast ready yet, was just about to start it—'

In front of his friends, from whom he had hidden nothing for years and years, Harry forged a way to explain his presence but not expose the delicate explicitness of what had occurred thirty short minutes ago. Only the partial truth was important now. Never mind the drama, never mind the romance, it was the spirit of adventure that mattered.

He slumped into a chair at the kitchen table. Thankful it was Saturday, and neither he nor Hermione would have to scurry off to the Ministry in an hour's time. And Ron would serve them a leisure, full breakfast, and Harry would try and eat. His throat was thick with the pressure of his bursting heart. Hermione sat across from him while Ron brought round a coffee press, mugs, and condiments. Ever the host, he poured before sitting. And when he did take to a chair, he watched Harry sternly, questioningly, before speaking silent wonderment to Hermione. She had hands wrapped around the cup, and the steam hazed her features, her soggy brown eyes.

'Things not going well at the manor?'

'You don't have to be timid about it,' Harry declared, stirring cream and sugar into his coffee. 'It's why I'm here. I just need a moment to think of how I'm going to say what I need to say.'

'Do you want some eggs? Toast?' Ron had not stayed sitting more than a minute. He showed compassion and friendship by trying to feed people, as his mother did. 'I was planning to have eggies in a basket this morning. That's Hermione's favourite. She likes the way I make them. Loads of butter.'

Harry permitted Ron to prepare eggies in a basket. But he leaned across the table, noticing he still wore the cloak, noticing his hands had finally shaken off the fear. His mind, however, had not. Malfoy had kissed him, _kissed him_, and so it repeated there, this marvellous act. Again and again he felt the kiss, Draco's heat, Draco's infecting confidence, Draco's incontrovertible passion.

Never mind it now. That was romance. That was drama. Hermione and Ron wouldn't understand what he couldn't explain. Explanation may come when it had been properly processed, never before.

But the heat remembered seared him, and flushed red into his face, and warmed his body. He removed the cloak, the knot at his throat that Draco had done with care. All the pictures flashed through him as a bleared cinematic feature, from touch to touch, kiss to kiss, word to word, moment to moment.

He made motions of tossing the cloak on the back of the sofa, as he usually did, but Hermione held up a hand.

'What is that? Is it new?'

'Actually,' Harry came to his proper senses, 'I wanted you to have a look at it.'

Hermione took it into her hands, turning the fabric over. Black, with a black-blue silk lining. 'This is Malfoy's cloak, isn't it? I'm sure it is. He wore it here last night. How did you end up with it?'

'He gave it to me before he left.'

Now Ron came over. He, too, took the cloak for examination. 'Feels weird.'

'At first, I thought it was wool, but I don't think it is. Malfoy called it a Wiltshire cloak,' Harry expounded.

Ron's face brightened. 'A Wiltshire cloak? Are you sure?' The cloak was held before his reverent gaze.

'Why?' Harry pressed, hands tingling. 'What's so special about it?'

'You two wouldn't know,' Ron said, 'having grown up in the Muggle world, and I only heard about them through Mum. Wiltshire cloaks used to be very popular about seventy years ago. They were made by a wizard from Wiltshire—'

'Ergo the name,' said Hermione. She touched it at the hem and moved her fingers back and forth. 'What's it made of?'

'Some sort of tightly-woven linen, supposedly. No one knew how the wizard did it, I can't remember his name, but they were always said to be the best cloaks ever made. Keep you warm in winter and cool in the summer. Dry in the rain. Entirely block wind, weather of all kinds. They're also said to act as some sort of camouflage, especially at night. And they last forever. But no one knew how that old wizard did it.'

Hermione stared at the object. 'An enchantment?'

'No,' Ron shook his head, still turning the bundle over, 'no, they've never been able to reveal any sort of enchantments from one. It's like it's inherently magical. It just is magical, that's all. Some things are. And Malfoy gave it to you?'

Harry toyed with the coffee cup. Ron had provided even more to think about. Why had Malfoy given him a magical cloak? Harry entertained the last image he had of Malfoy, the last second they looked each other in the eye. Harry shuddered, knowing the expression of horror, surprise—or perhaps resignation—that had been on his face. And Draco's look of wonder and sadness. A pale, thin body, pitiable in the cold April rain. 'I have a feeling that wherever Malfoy is going, he won't be needing it.'

'But they're expensive, if you can find one at all. Saw one at Borgin and Burkes once, a couple years back, and it was seven hundred galleons and some sickles. I can't believe Malfoy would part with something this exclusive. I mean, Malfoy. He's an okay bloke, now he's not as stuffy as he used to be at school, and maybe not as evil, but to part with this— It's just not like him.'

'Maybe it isn't, but Harry has the cloak now. We'll figure out why later.' Hermione waved a hand to dismiss Ron and focus on Harry. 'You just said Malfoy won't need it where he's going.'

Harry gave a nod.

'I thought he was going to Germany. Unless they're having a tremendously early summer, I'd think he'd require a cloak.'

The moment had come. As moments do. They come, pass, until another takes its place. It was a phrase reluctantly important, ignoring its own superiority and bowing to the supremacy of necessity voiced only through a true hero.

'He's not going to Germany,' said the hero. 'But I am.'

-x-

III.30

A healthy fire burned brightly and warmly inside the single-room hut. Wind howled fiercely against the snowy hillsides, but all was cosy within. The wind was almost companionable, with its moans and groans and forlorn sighs. No other noise dared interrupt, save for the scraping of blade on wood, the faint tap as shavings drifted to the ground, and the light snores of a firelizard curled up on her fur bed in the corner.

Then she whipped her head up, and her two long facial whiskers flounced. No longer did she entertain a thought of dreams. Her eyes were wide and watching, her wee triangular ears strained to hear behind the wind. Something lurked, and the wood carver tensed.

'What have you heard, Deppa?'

She slithered from the fur. On padded, tiny feet, claws clicking on the planks, she investigated the door. Again she froze to listen. Her round teal eyes, poorly proportioned to her elongated, rectangular face, found the elf and held.

'Do you know, I have a feeling it's that little insufferable rat,' Deppa said. She was not a cheerful sort, and nearly everything that spoke or breathed or was otherwise in her way, permanently separating her from all the finery of life that could be offered a firelizard, was detested and, above all, absolutely insufferable.

The elf set down whittle and block. Chips and shavings of all sizes tumbled off his legs as he moved. The door was pulled in two inches. A lace of snow zipped in and found Deppa's face. She sputtered heat from her nostrils to melt it off. Another brave examination to the outer world, into the nothingness of Finnmark, she heard the patter of four tiny feet. Out of the blowing snow formed an image darker than the white, ever blackening as it neared. The unmistakable shape of a very large rat, round body and two round ears, was filmy in the haze. The rat came in at an uncontrollable speed. He saw Deppa only at the very last second, forced himself to stop on a patch of ice, and dived into Deppa. Not the most agile of firelizards, Deppa was unable to swerve. Rat and lizard collided just inside the door, to the great amusement of the elf. He laughed as they tumbled into the house. They stopped only when they hit the leg of his working stool. It was thrown from balance and tumbled to its side. Deppa scrambled to her hind legs, fire threatening from her prominent nostrils, her heavy, mean brow already slanted to inculcate a bigger threat.

The rat groaned, rolled over, thankful to put feet under him. He gave an indulgent, inelegant shake of his brown head, and dared bother cleaning behind an ear until the last slip of hair was back in place, before stooping grandly at the elf's boots.

'I come from the north with important news, Prask. It could not wait, and was far too delicate for post.'

The elf Prask returned his stool to its position, whittle and block to its seat. News from the north promised negativity, and he would find no happiness in carving till he had heard and explored all.

'News from the north, he says! News from the north! Great,' Deppa drawled, already heading to her bed of fur, 'that means it doesn't concern me!' She'd taken three steps until getting no further. Angling her saurian neck, she saw Prask holding the end of her tail.

Prask's yellow-rimmed emerald glare was illumed by the spark of reprimand. 'Don't be rude to our guest, Deppa.'

Disgruntled, Deppa slithered back towards the warmth of the fire, and lay on her rock there. She used a palm to keep her chin raised, lying on her belly. Every tenth exhale found smoke curling from her nose. She hated the rat. As she hated most everyone.

Prask made an inviting gesture to blankets, furs, his only sitting chair. 'Make yourself comfortable, Rattitatt. If the news is worthy, you will be here a good hour. Would you like tea or warmed cereal? I believe there's some rice. Don't we have some rice left, Deppa?'

Deppa obnoxiously burped. 'That's all gone.'

'All the same, Prask, I'm not hungry. Couldn't eat a thing.' Rattitatt accepted a bit of blanket, and wrapped its warm woollen corner round his shoulders. The shivering began to subside. 'I have journeyed all the way from Trøndheim this morning to tell you what I've heard. You know there has been much speculation that unrest is brewing in the Southern tribes. We have endured whispers of it all winter.'

'These rumours have been numerous.' Prask took his chair after handing Rattitatt a teacup fit for a doll's house. 'And now it seems you're ready to declare these rumours have turned to fact.'

Rattitatt sipped the brew gratefully. His whiskers defrosted. 'It is most unfortunately true, Prask. It has your clansman alarmed. Your brother sends his best wishes, by and by, and asked me to issue an open invite to visit him. Er, he stressed that the visit should be _sooner_ rather than _later_.' Rattitatt had perceived the look of disappointment mixed with secret ire on Prask's features many times before, all the times Prask's family members were indicated. 'I believe he wishes to discuss the precariousness of this situation with you, in further detail than can be delivered by a faithful servant of the Northern Elves, no matter that gentleman's qualifications. You know I agree with him, Prask: You ought to visit.'

In a moment of quiet, Rattitatt enjoyed the tea, Prask rubbed his chin, and Deppa snored loudly on her rock. Prask gave her a prod in the side. She snorted and woke herself up, muttering about 'waking you up in the middle of a nap and see how you like it', a traditional and harmless threat.

Rattitatt finished the tea, and then he continued. 'This is becoming potentially serious. The negative vibrations are beginning to spread. The southern magic is dimming, Prask. The snow has lost her lustre, the sun his warmth, the moon her intelligence. The Voesvorgen are gathering the elemental magics to them. You know the signs.'

Slim hands pulled to his jaw, Prask ruminated on this information. The Voesvorgen were gathering. The cycle had begun again. They acted by no planetary, cosmic ritual; there was no alignment of planets or numbers of stars that must fall before initiation. It is whenever required. Prask recalled the knowledge Albus Dumbledore had unwittingly provided, nearly a hundred years ago, and remembered it then.

_Out there somewhere is a day when the Voesvorgen will be destroyed._

Prask elevated from the chair, all the roughness of his spirit displayed. Shards of ancestral elven grace remained within, but buried far and deep. He reached for his pack, hung from a peg on the wall, and found miscellaneous but important survival items to fill it. Passing Deppa, he tapped the dozing blue firelizard with his toe, none too gently.

'Wake up, Deppa.'

'I can't even imagine why.' She rolled over and tucked her eyes behind a scaly mitt. Her head shot up only when something soft and smelly blackened all. She peeled the article from her and analysed it in fathomless disdain. Her travelling cloak. Green to bring out the flecks in her eyes. But she whined and flattened to the snug stone. 'Must I go with you, Prask? Someone should stay home and watch after the house.'

'Yes, because random travellers are always a problem.'

Prask easily outsmarted Deppa. She knew this, yet the competitive badinage delighted. Time was not plentiful, or Deppa would've continued pleading.

Sleepily, she donned her coat. Rattitatt flitted about, helping gather effects Prask would require on his journey north, and any possible journey afterward. Being only a foot of the ground, he could only grunt and whimper as he attempted to lower the sword from its designated spot on the north-facing wall. Prask dashed over and retrieved it himself. He knelt, sword across lean knees, emotionless gaze on Rattitatt.

'I have not been in the court of my brother for many years, Rattitatt. While you and I travel together, I hope you will inform me of any changes I may see. You have been an excellent servant, and I am honoured to call you my friend, but you are under no obligation to—'

'My place is with the court of the Northern Elves, Prask.' Rattitatt was rather appalled that Prask should suggest desertion of post. The idea was simply a foreign one. 'And should you need a performer to carry a difficult task, look no further.' Then his sight slipped to indicate the firelizard. Annoyance and a tint of melancholy surfaced. 'But please keep that thing away from me! She's done nothing but try and eat me for fifteen years!'

'I, consume roasted rat!' cried Deppa. She knotted her cloak expertly, knowing how well she looked in it (for firelizards are the vainest of the dragon varieties), and accentuated dislike with a upward tilt of her snout. 'I'd sooner eat lutefisk than roasted rat! Humph!'

Rattitatt's fists tightened as fury ran like hot lava. He was only cured from anger because the words would not come, and Prask lowered a comforting hand on his shoulder.

'Rattitatt will ride with me,' Prask said, dividing his company for mere sanity, 'and Deppa may choose to traverse terrain as her mood fancies, foot, flight, or in the pack.'

Prask had just finished the sentence and Deppa slithered into the darkness of his tough leather pack. It suited Deppa, happiest out of the sunlight, and far from Rattitatt's overwhelming odour of damp, muddy fur. Although whatever Prask had last carried in his pack left behind a clammy scent of its own. She snorted, sending up a grey tuft, and found a useable spot in the arm of his only other clean shirt. She was already in dozing mode by the time Prask lifted the pack to his shoulder. He checked the weight and balance of his sword, felt that it was well, and sheathed it. Rattitatt had just put out the fire with water and ash. The candles had been previously extinguished. The shutters were closed and fastened. Rattitatt enjoyed a final look, while Prask thought nothing of leaving his home, and the two were out the door. The third slept and cared little for arrivals or departures, except if an arrival should be the joyous coming of food, sleep, or midsummer.

'We will be there within two days, Prask,' Rattitatt informed when the hut was already a brown dot against the white hills. 'The road is in fine condition. Or it was as I travelled it today and yesterday. Every elf of Dakkindl will be pleased to see you, Prask. Your brother, your sister, your grandmother—'

'And I shall be pleased to see them, Rattitatt. It has been many years.' Prask was less certain about the king of the Northern Elves. Some matters were too personal to be spoken. And the king, his respect for Kriskarius Prask minimal, would not be easily persuaded into believing the Voesvorgen were gathering the elemental magics. Prask sincerely wished he would not be the bringer of such an unwanted report.

'Rattitatt, tell me, has the king been informed of the Voesvorgen activity?'

Rattitatt allayed Prask's apprehension. 'Yes, I know for a fact that he has been. By a reliable source: I told him myself.'

'And how did he take it?'

'Not well. He is reluctant. But I suggested sending a ranging team into the south for surreptitious investigation while I journeyed to bring you back to Dakkindl. His majesty was pleased with the idea. I daresay that when we arrive, we'll find that a whole plan has been divined and readied.'

That is what Prask feared. They would tell him what to do without heeding his insight. The same happened all those years ago. But only Kriskarius Prask of the Northern Elves knew the Southern Elf clan of the Voesvorgen. He knew them better than anyone. On that single, renowned truth would the king once again place his trust.

_You do realise this means we failed._

Prask blinked as the ghostly voice of Albus fed him the line. Albus. He would not be around now to help, with his understanding of magic, his desire to stop the oppressive actions of the Voesvorgen. On an endless summer day four years ago, Prask had received news of Dumbledore's death. Now Prask would have to stop the Voesvorgen with his powers of wit and cunning, with little help but what an optimistic rat and a pessimistic firelizard can provide. He possessed knowledge, an ability to learn quickly, a master of adapting, and those were qualities signifying his deadliest weapons.

_This time, I will not fail._


	8. Chapter 8

III.31

By late morning, the trio had skipped across southern England, from Devon to Dover, and skipped across the Channel. Apparation to the Continent was far less tricky if one took it in small steps. Hermione followed a route she had planned before leaving home, she had planned everything, thought through as much as she could, while Ron voiced concerns and Harry contemplated how grateful he was for his two best friends. They were willing to reach Germany with him, on no other reason but that a concerned Harry was determined to go. That was enough for them. 'And it's Saturday,' Ron said as he donned a worn travelling cloak of vernal green patterned with grey, 'I had nothing else planned for today but listening to the WWN and cleaning up a bit.' Hermione brought out atlases, talked over a route with the two of them, and wrote down notes. She made no pithy attempt to hide an excited grin. 'This is just like old days!' But better, now that they had the power and license to Apparate.

For an hour they waited before completing the last portion of their Apparation, which would take them to the outskirts of Schneestadt. They snacked on pastry delicacies, local fare, while returning to their notes and rehearsing what they'd do once in Schneestadt.

'And we're sure that's where his mum lives, are we?' voiced Ron. 'Would hate to get all the way there and find out she lives in _Schneistadt_, not _Schneestadt_.'

'Ronald,' Hermione verged on exasperated, 'yes, to infinity yes, I'm sure she lives there.'

A suddenly solemn Ron shoved into his mouth the last bite of pastry. Hermione was relieved of a retort.

Harry stared blankly into his tea. The amber fluid had gone cold, and dregs darkened the bottom, though all he saw was Malfoy. Always Malfoy. He lifted his head to find Hermione rolling up the notes and tucking them into her enchanted handbag. She had an unseen number of objects inside, as Harry had witnessed while the war wound unwaveringly to its climax nearly four years ago.

'Hermione, do you know why she moved to Germany?' He knew he'd said ridiculous words as soon as she gaped at him, joined by Ron. If Ron gaped— 'Sorry, I didn't think the answer would be that simple. I know that Lucius Malfoy is imprisoned at Nürnberg. But I didn't suppose she'd actually move all the way to Germany just to be closer to him.'

'Love is sick,' Ron observed. 'Suppose she does love him. I mean, to want to move to Germany for him and all. Shame. Would've preferred seeing him in Azkaban myself. But Azkaban isn't as it was when I was growing up. Horrifying to hear about, nightmarish. Not like it is now.'

'The Ministry is working very hard to reach agreeable terms with the Dementors,' Hermione added in her expert way. 'It could take years. The Restoration means nothing to them. All the Death Eaters—those still living at the end of the war—were sent to Nürnberg.'

'Thanks for the lesson in Modern Wizarding History, Mione.'

'I'm only trying to justify the actions of Narcissa Malfoy, Ron.'

Harry pushed the teacup away. 'Using a clearer example than love, you mean.'

Hermione wiggled slightly in the seat, uncomfortable with the expression. Harry did have a way of stating it, void of verbose plumage, that got the point across better than her fustian, fact-based explanations. 'She could've done it for love. I don't argue that point. Love is irrational, everyone knows that. No one knows how it works. Kind of like magic. But, anyway, Harry said that Draco said that his mum has old school friends living in Schneestadt. I bet she doesn't know a soul in Nürnberg.'

'I doubt her knowing a soul at all,' Ron said with a simper. 'We should go and find out. France is beginning to bore me.'

He shuffled from the seat with Harry and Hermione, pulling their cloaks back on and gathering very few looks from the French audience. People in France minded their own business, Hermione said. As she'd spent far more holidays there than Harry had, he honoured the statement.

They found an abandoned area behind a row of run-down brick businesses, and there they collectively Apparated, by Hermione's control, into Schneestadt. The only all-wizarding village of Germany.

-x-

III.32

'I was expecting snow,' Ron quipped as they surveyed the town from their vista. 'And, look, sunshine and blue sky, green grass and trees ready to blossom. Hmm. I admit it, I'm disappointed.'

Hermione's interest in Schneestadt was less personal and more educational. 'Look at those buildings! Just imagine how old they must be! Ancient! I do wish we could spend more time here. It would be fascinating. Isn't it rather a pretty place?'

'The word you're looking for is quaint,' said Ron. 'Doesn't exactly look like Hogsmeade, does it? Hogsmeade's, like, a quaint village in the English countryside done to the point of caricature. But not Schneestadt.'

'It's also older than Hogsmeade by a hundred and fifty years.'

'You know too much, wife of mine. Someone might find you very dangerous someday.'

'Too late for that!'

Ron grumbled incoherently, then smacked Harry on the arm. 'What do you think, Harry?'

'Well, like you, Ron, I was expecting snow,' replied Harry. 'It is called Snowtown.'

'That the extent of your German? Very funny, Harry.' Hermione tapped Ron on the arm. His face was beginning to redden from the heat. 'Come on, it's hot standing in the sun like lizards. According to the map, there's a road on the other side of this meadow that takes us into the village.'

Hermione led the way, followed by Ron, Harry loitering behind several paces.

His stomach screamed in musical harmony with his nerves. He glanced at the village, it lay in a little dale between three hills, brick and clapboard buildings, close together, with colourful roofs, a barrage of chimneys, and narrow, winding streets. It was much larger than Hogsmeade, perhaps three times the size. And Harry tried to command his anxiety.

The first and the last person he wanted to speak to was Narcissa Malfoy. He had thought no one would find out he'd been to Malfoy Manor. And now he was about to expose the secret to the very woman he'd always feared would find out.

-x-

III.33

On a residential street in the north of town, Hermione stood before a house. Ron surveyed the place with a repulsed expression. Harry had no expression at all. It was a house of darkly stained wood, a bright yellow front door, and someone had recently planted a row of cheerful flowers along the walkway. Red window boxes continued the flowers, on the first, second, and third storey. For the house was narrow, quite narrow, lodged between two dissimilar residences, and giving each a significant uniqueness.

While Hermione and Ron finished their observation, Harry strode by them and took the path. He pushed his glasses up as he went. He drew a deep breath and let it out. The waves rolled inside. There was no stopping the surge. He had faced Death Eaters and a Dark Lord, and yet he was terrified to hold a conversation with Draco Malfoy's mother. Harry gave his head a clearing shake. Knowing it was ridiculous, such courage in the face of one matter, total weakness in the other. But he feared she'd have a mother's ability to examine into the heart, to see what had happened, what Draco had done, and find a way to blame Harry. And there was no reasoning his way from it. If Narcissa Malfoy discovered that her son had kissed Harry Potter, Harry Potter would have no way to explain why he had allowed it to happen a second time. She would know he'd been allured. She'd know.

'Bollocks,' he whispered to himself at the door. Shoulders straightened, he let the brass knocker announce him three times in succession. When it was pulled in, Harry looked down, anticipating the elongated nose and globular eyes of a house-elf. Instead, he found a little blonde-haired, brown-eyed child, a young girl of seven.

'Hello,' he said in English as he stooped, 'my name is Harry Potter. Is your mum or dad about?'

She beamed at him but angled away. The house swallowed her. They heard her shout in German. Eyebrows raised, Harry looked to Hermione. She shrugged and said she didn't know much German. And Ron claimed the same.

'It's going to be a very long day,' Harry reminded himself. 'Very long.'

The door creaked as he finished, and the little girl reappeared, latched to the hand of herself in adult form. The girl's mother, clearly, with the same shade of golden blonde hair, the same shade of cedar brown eyes.

'Hello,' Harry recited again, 'my name is Harry Potter. These are my friends, Ron and Hermione. I'm interested in speaking to Narcissa Malfoy. We were told she lives at this address.'

A cold reception from the woman, before she showed a quiet, unassuming smile, friendly in every way. She drew the door farther from the jamb and stepped aside. 'Come in, Mr Potter. Your friends are welcome, too.'

They gave their thanks and entered a crowded foyer. Harry's senses were subjected to dark woodwork and walls of autumnal hues: oranges, reds, golds. The tight staircase was open all the way to the third storey, with balconies and landings between, and a ceiling of planks far above their heads. The home smelled remarkably pleasant, of comfortable spices native to fairytale woods. Baskets and vases of flowers were on every flat surface. The house cheered their travel-weary spirits. Harry surveyed the reactions of Ron and Hermione, and saw they felt the same. It grew harder and harder to believe Narcissa Malfoy could live in a place so domestic. She seemed cold as a serpent, as one who ought to live only at the bottom of the darkest sea.

'It is a pleasure meeting you,' their host began. 'My name is Adelle Klewer. If you'll allow me to, I'll show you the parlour.'

The room was on the other side of the foyer, a handful of steps away. The little girl that had answered the door was there, rambunctiously climbing the furniture. She did not notice her mother enter until disciplining claps set her to attention. She dashed from the room. Harry found the little girl amusing and asked for her name.

'That is Luete. She is the baby of the family. Very spoiled.' Adelle Klewer had a melodic laugh. 'And now that Narcissa has come, Luete is even more spoiled. You'll wait here while I find Narcissa for you. I think she is in the garden.' Adelle exited through the same open way that Luete had dashed, a distant part of the house adjacent to the foyer.

Harry was the first to find a place to wait. He chose a chair by the window, and spied through the lace curtains at the residential street. 'I can't believe I'm sitting in a stranger's house in Germany.'

'I can't believe I'm in Germany,' Ron said. He looked at Hermione.

'Sorry, I'm not feeling so surreal. I did make the all the plans that got us here. That adds a touch of realism. And she's not a stranger. She's Adelle Klewer. I'm sure she must've been my mother in another life.'

Harry and Ron agreed. 'Wonder if she's got biscuits? All mums have biscuits.'

And as if Ron had made a wish, Adelle returned, bringing a tea tray trimmed with chocolate biscuits. Ron beamed.

'Narcissa will be with us in a moment,' said Adelle. 'I thought we might like tea.'

As Ron's cup was poured, Narcissa appeared. Harry had the obscene notion that he ought to rise, and did so. It was a pleasure to face her in his full height, such as it was, if not his full wits.

The surprise of Harry Potter's visit had been the pleasure of Adelle, and Narcissa had needed a moment to compose herself before parleying with him. 'Mr Potter,' she tipped her chin down in an effort to congenially nod, 'how do you do?'

'Mrs Malfoy, thank you for seeing me.'

She was not the aloof icicle that Harry had expected. While she was not warm, she had a simple sense of affection and understanding of people. She had even experienced empathy once or twice, love about as often, and commiseration in infantile ways.

But Harry grew leery of this visit. He had realised last night that Draco resembled his mother more than his father. To see her again was to see the vague outline of Draco. Harry began to entertain, in his semi-conscious, exactly the moment when it had ceased to feel that the last he saw Draco was that morning. When had lifetimes passed since they'd seen each other? Surely he had aged a decade since that morning.

'I hardly anticipated meeting with you in Germany of all places, Mr Potter,' Narcissa said. She located a seat on the sofa, accepted the tea, while Harry returned to the edge of the chair. He was not relaxed, Narcissa noted, and was blatantly disinterested in the tea. 'Is there some particular reason you and your friends have come? It's not exactly a spontaneous visit from England to Germany. One has to plan these things.'

Harry was indeed disinterested in his tea. He put it back on the low table, near the tray, and wringed his now empty hands. The best approach with a Malfoy was bluntness, otherwise they would execute angles, and draw the conversation away from them as much as possible.

'I want to talk to you about Draco.'

There, blunt enough. He could tell by the way she stared at him. Adelle Klewer sensed it, made an excuse none of them heard, and departed.

Narcissa was already plotting her manoeuvre. She would not be undone so early, no matter the amount of admirable bluntness from Harry Potter. 'Yes, of course. Draco has written to me often since his return to England, and he loves to talk about his work at the Ministry. He has mentioned you once or twice—in passing.' She accidentally lowered her gaze, and Harry interpreted that Draco had mentioned him far more than twice. So often, in fact, as to madden his mother and blossom her annoyance. 'You have been very accepting of the change in him since the war. I know he appreciates your kindness. Others have not found his alteration of character so palatable, Mr Potter. And through your acceptance, Draco has found an easier time.'

She stopped with a sense of finality. That was all she meant to say of the subject. Harry shifted. While secretly pleased that Draco had mentioned him so often as to exasperate his mother, Harry pressed on. Blunt. He must be blunt. All the Malfoys were sharp, it was their way, but only against the whetstone.

'Draco has gone off, Mrs Malfoy, and I don't know where he is. I don't think you know, either, but I want you to tell me what you do know about Draco's time here in Germany. If there is something he did that was unusual, or someone he knew that he shouldn't have. Did he ever get himself in trouble?'

'In trouble? No, Mr Potter, he wasn't in trouble. He worked extremely hard, and did whatever the embassy asked of him. He was liked by his co-workers, appreciated in his small group of friends, and made no enemies. The embassy found no fault in his performance. He was never chastised for fractiousness or disciplined for lateness. He liked his job. He liked his friends. I'm sure if he's gone off, he's simply visiting one of them.'

'Who?' Now it was Hermione that asked. Harry could see her mind waiting, like a brain holding a quill over parchment, ready to write down the names of those Draco may visit. It was no matter that Hermione didn't believe Draco visited a friend. She believed Harry. The names were craved, only the names.

The point of Narcissa's nose lifted slightly, an innate reaction to the shock of having to divulge her son's personal life. To make it easier, she answered only while looking at Harry.

'You'll want to try Markel Worrall. He and Draco were the closest of friends. Did everything together, went everywhere together. If my son had gone anywhere he shouldn't, and if anyone would know, Mr Worrall would.'

At a small writing desk, Narcissa found a white-topped quill and scribbled on a piece of scrap parchment. She extended the scrap to Harry.

'I know the way there by heart. It used to be Draco's home.'

-x-

III.34

The hasp on the low wooden gate slipped in place behind Harry. He pushed up his glasses to better read the parchment Mrs Malfoy had provided. Dutifully, the article was given to Hermione, who would find it on the map. They had found Narcissa Malfoy by asking a friendly florist in the heart of Schneestadt. And Harry, after being inside the house, witnessing the array of vases filled with fresh-cut nosegays, suddenly understood why the florist had provided such accurate directions, and so enthusiastically. Hermione had picked up a map of the town at the Visitor's House. She unfolded it now after reading the address. She pulled her nose from the folds only when Ron made an appropriate observation.

'You know something, Harry? She didn't mention anything about your cloak. You'd think that, being his mum and all, she'd recognise Malfoy's cloak.'

Harry glanced down at the garment. 'No, she didn't. I noticed that, too.'

'Well, you know what that means.' Hermione lifted the map higher. Only her bushy hair was visible beyond the paper edges.

'Not really,' Harry and Ron told her simultaneously.

Hermione's hands tightened and the paper crinkled in protest. But she didn't give in to an annoyed sigh. 'It means, obviously, that Draco got the cloak after he went back to Wiltshire.'

'Or he hid it from his mum,' Harry added.

'Why would he?' enquired Ron. Then he answered himself. 'Unless he spent seven hundred galleons on it, and knew his mum wouldn't like him throwing his money away, and so he didn't want to wear it in front of her.'

Hermione's right eyebrow drew down. Harry read it to mean she doubted the statement. 'Yeah,' she said in a faint voice, 'yeah, maybe.'

But none of them really believed it. To Harry, the Wiltshire cloak was part of the mystery. Draco had given him the cloak for a reason. And Harry was convinced that wherever Draco had Apparated to that morning, in the rain and the gloom, he'd been relieved to see it around Harry's shoulders.

Snobbery and relief and hope, those were the ingredients of the last stare they had shared. Harry hadn't remembered hope till now.


End file.
